My occasionally spacey sister left some of her clothes in a drawer in her hotel room at Sam's Town last week. Housekeeping found them for her, and today I had to go pick them up so I can mail them to her. I had noticed in the local movie listings that the newest poker movie, Deal, directed by Gil Cates, Jr., was showing at only two places, and one of them was the cinemaplex at Sam's Town. It seemed like destiny. So I went to the 3:00 showing. At 2:55, I was the only one in the theater. It would have been an unprecedented experience to see a movie in a theater completely alone, but five other people came in at the last minute to ruin the opportunity.
I was prepared to hate this film. I even posted last fall that it was probably going to suck. The initial reviews have been far from kind; Wicked Chops Poker quoted these review snippets:
"Deal has to take the title of the worst film ever about the game and that
includes the how-to videos with Joan Rivers impersonators you see in your Vegas
hotel room." - Erik Childress, efilmcritic.com
"One
of the most cliche-ridden and generally misguided films of not just the year,
but the decade so far." - Brian Tallerico, Deadbolt.com
"Director/co-writer
Gil Cates Jr. gives us a by-the-numbers execution of a by-the-numbers story,
which would barely be movie-of-the-week material but for Reynolds's 'star
power.'" - LA
City Beat
"A poker movie that has the dubious honor of being even worse
than Lucky You." - Gary Thompson (but not the Gary Thompson?), Philadelphia
Daily News
In a later post, the same site noted that the film had received a perfect 0% on rottentomatoes.com (i.e., not a single good review), which doesn't happen too often. Similarly, I see that metacritic.com finds an average review score of 35/100, and not a single one better than 50 (see here).
So, like I said, I was prepared to hate it. After all, I've hated most of the poker movies I've posted about here (click the "movies" label at the end of this post or along the left-hand margin to see them all), and griping about things that I don't like or that are just plain bad is, well, it's kind of my whole schtick here, y'know?
But I have to say--it wasn't all that bad.
Sure, it managed to pull together every cliche you might imagine--the hooker with the heart of gold, the washed-up, has-been poker great of yesteryear trying to mount a comeback, the brash, young internet poker whiz who has to learn about live poker tells and whose family disapproves of his playing, the inevitable teacher-versus-student finale for the championship, etc. Also, it definitely takes a while to get going. You can see the "surprise" ending coming from a mile away (especially if you've seen Lucky You, which should sue for plagiarism). And nobody's going to be winning any Oscars for this baby. I could also note the oddity of the World Poker Tour suddenly being broadcast live, and with Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten doing commentary all the way through, rather than just at the final table. Also, there are small poker continuity problems, such as the community cards being swept away at the end of a hand not being the same ones that were shown in close-up as the hand progressed.
But on the positive side, the soundtrack was pretty enjoyable (including tracks from Delbert McClinton and Lorrie Morgan), and you get to see Shannon Elizabeth in her underwear. (Her part, incidentally, is so insignificant that it could have been edited out without disturbing the plot--except that then we'd miss out on seeing her in her unders.) Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari play themselves, and do very well. That sounds like it should be a laugh line, but it's not. The pros playing themselves in most other poker movies come off far stiffer and more uncomfortable than they are in real life, but Phil and Antonio look, sound, and act just like they do everywhere else you've seen them--relaxed and funny. Most importantly, the poker itself doesn't suck, and there's a lot of it, neither of which could be said about many so-called poker movies.
I particularly liked the one truly surprising aspect of the big showdown at the end--the way that the Burt Reynolds character adjusts for the fact that his protege has apparently picked up on a tell that he has. It's daring, brilliant, dramatic, and even plausible, given the circumstances. (Which is why I'm not going to tell you what it is here.)
I suppose that overall it's somewhat duller than Lucky You, with fewer characters and fewer diversions from the main plot, but it also avoids most of the things that drove me crazy about Lucky You (getting poker stuff wrong, relationships that don't make sense, unlikeable main characters).
I think the movie's strengths and weaknesses are summed up best in this paragraph from the review that Wesley Morris wrote for the Boston Globe:
So, like I said, I was prepared to hate it. After all, I've hated most of the poker movies I've posted about here (click the "movies" label at the end of this post or along the left-hand margin to see them all), and griping about things that I don't like or that are just plain bad is, well, it's kind of my whole schtick here, y'know?
But I have to say--it wasn't all that bad.
Sure, it managed to pull together every cliche you might imagine--the hooker with the heart of gold, the washed-up, has-been poker great of yesteryear trying to mount a comeback, the brash, young internet poker whiz who has to learn about live poker tells and whose family disapproves of his playing, the inevitable teacher-versus-student finale for the championship, etc. Also, it definitely takes a while to get going. You can see the "surprise" ending coming from a mile away (especially if you've seen Lucky You, which should sue for plagiarism). And nobody's going to be winning any Oscars for this baby. I could also note the oddity of the World Poker Tour suddenly being broadcast live, and with Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten doing commentary all the way through, rather than just at the final table. Also, there are small poker continuity problems, such as the community cards being swept away at the end of a hand not being the same ones that were shown in close-up as the hand progressed.
But on the positive side, the soundtrack was pretty enjoyable (including tracks from Delbert McClinton and Lorrie Morgan), and you get to see Shannon Elizabeth in her underwear. (Her part, incidentally, is so insignificant that it could have been edited out without disturbing the plot--except that then we'd miss out on seeing her in her unders.) Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari play themselves, and do very well. That sounds like it should be a laugh line, but it's not. The pros playing themselves in most other poker movies come off far stiffer and more uncomfortable than they are in real life, but Phil and Antonio look, sound, and act just like they do everywhere else you've seen them--relaxed and funny. Most importantly, the poker itself doesn't suck, and there's a lot of it, neither of which could be said about many so-called poker movies.
I particularly liked the one truly surprising aspect of the big showdown at the end--the way that the Burt Reynolds character adjusts for the fact that his protege has apparently picked up on a tell that he has. It's daring, brilliant, dramatic, and even plausible, given the circumstances. (Which is why I'm not going to tell you what it is here.)
I suppose that overall it's somewhat duller than Lucky You, with fewer characters and fewer diversions from the main plot, but it also avoids most of the things that drove me crazy about Lucky You (getting poker stuff wrong, relationships that don't make sense, unlikeable main characters).
I think the movie's strengths and weaknesses are summed up best in this paragraph from the review that Wesley Morris wrote for the Boston Globe:
But "Deal" doesn't really care about the characters as much as it does the
World Poker Championships, where Tommy and Alex end up. Once we get there the
movie becomes interesting because Cates understands the game and its dramas a
lot better than he understands people and theirs.
Incidentally, I saw previews for two non-poker-related movies that both look excellent: Hamlet 2, a comedy, and American Teen, a documentary.
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1 comment:
10+ years ago, on the 2nd weekend after it's release, I got to watch "Battlefield Earth" (Travolta, etc) alone in a theatre in Tempe, Az. The worker assigned to clean the theatre afterwards thanked me for attending...
- Nate
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