"Hitting the Nuts"

A few months ago I read in one of the poker magazines (Poker Pro, maybe? I can't remember.) about a new poker-themed movie coming out. "Hitting the Nuts" was to be a comedy about a poker tournament held in rural Indiana, shot "mockumentary" style.

Somehow I learned that it was going to be screened at a film festival in Las Vegas last month, but when I looked up the details, I found that it would be shown on a Saturday morning at the Hilton. I think it was $10 to get in for that session. I didn't mind the price so much as the getting up early. So I skipped it.

I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing a poker torrent site looking for a poker show that I had missed, and noticed the film listed. I was curious, so did a download, but didn't watch it until last week, when I was in D.C. visiting Cardgrrl.

Her generous assessment of it: "Well, it wasn't unremittingly awful."

I thought that it pretty much was--starting very early on, when one of the characters, an Amish farmer, explains that he's entering the tournament because he is desperate for money due to all of his cows suddenly turning "homosexual." It gets more stupid and less funny from there.

Here's the official trailer:

A longer version is available on the film's official site here.

The whole thing is pure stinkeroo--lame and unfunny, with acting and dialog of a level you'd expect to see in a high school improv sketch. It attempts to generate laughs by being over-the-top absurd in both plot and characterization, but everything just falls flat. There is certainly more poker than in most "poker" movies, but it's entirely of the preflop-shove-and-suckout variety. This isn't surprising, since we learn early on that nobody in this tournament knows much of anything about how to play.

I can't imagine who put up money to pay for this wretched thing to be made, but I recommend that you not encourage them to make more like it by buying the DVD (or a theater ticket, if it is being shown anywhere, which I kind of doubt).