A big part of my love of casino poker, is generally the variety of people you meet. If I find myself sitting at a table with a few interesting people, I can literally sit there until I can't keep my eyes open (my record is 13 hours straight). I have also sat at tables with nothing but old and cranky locals who are not there to make small talk. But the amazing spread of ethnicity, education, income bracket, gender, etc. makes for some very good conversation. This works both ways of course, you can end up sitting next to some miserable people, or someone who just talks your ear off about boring shit. My least favorite are the people that like to talk through each move they make, as if they are some sort of poker guru. But generally speaking, the people who stay the longest are the better quality players who are generally more intelligent. I mean poker is a thinking game, so this would make sense.
So during one of my evening poker sessions in Vegas recently, someone brought up the subject of 'Worst Poker Movie'. I actually was busy talking to the drunk dude next to me (he has was a happy go lucky drunk, so I was actually enjoying his 'banter'), so I missed a lot of the titles that were thrown out there. But one that caused a bit of debate was the recent Barrymore flick, "Lucky You." I hadn't seen the movie yet, but I had a vague recollection of when it came out and seeing the previews. The table came to a consensus that while it was not a 'great' movie by any stretch of the imagination, it was tolerable if you needed to suggest a movie to your girl without going with 'Hope Floats' or 'Message in a Bottle' or something of that nature.
So I happened to be sitting home, and this movie was onDemand (or is it inDemand?) so I took the plunge. Now early on I was not sold on Eric Bana as the pretty poker prodigy. I mean the fiercest grinders that I have seen are generally not a pretty breed. I would say as a rule of thumb, if someone sits down looking like Eric Bana, everyone at the table is licking their chops to get a portion of those chips. Grinders in general are a ratty looking crew (this writer excluded of course). Some of the early scenes in the movie, Bana just comes off a little douchey to me. If I had to guess, they casted a guy that was not all that familar with poker players, and was going off of WSOP footage where he sees guys like Matusow and Hellmuth 'hollywooding' for the camera. But Bana kind of fit into his roll eventually as the movie went on.
Robert Duvall was great I thought. Duvall plays Bana's pro poker player father who is a legend in his own time. I was a little annoyed at the interactions of Duvall's character with opposing players, where they would lose chips to him and than thank him for the honor. I mean come on!
TONS of real life pro players made cameos, and I thought that was pretty cool. But why not include them in the scenes at the final table of the WSOP?
And without ruining the movie . . . the final table of the WSOP is where the movie lost me. The scenarios put forth from that point forward are so non-poker-realistic that it is ridiculous. The movie had a chance to be a decent poker movie, but loses all credibility in the end, making way for a sappy Barrymore standard.
Nonetheless, the movie has its moments. The poker stuff is actually pretty entertaining, some bad beats, some degenerate behavior, etc. Horatio Sanz is pretty entertaining in his role, and makes for a good side character, and the movie as a whole is very painless. So if I had to rate it, I would give it a whopping 5/10. I am reviewing this from a poker fan standpoint, and there is just a little too much Barrymore-Bana for me. It would have been an incredible film if they made it darker and cast two edgier people. Think Leaving Las Vegas with poker. Give me a Nick Cage type and some cocktail waittress, and put them in a hotel room in North Vegas, bring in Phillip Seymour Hoffman somehow, and add a splash of Bushemi as the greasey local shark. Done deal . . . I'll write the script, email me your offers. Thanks.
0 comments:
Post a Comment