No.219 :The Gambler (2014)

The Gambler (2014) at the IMDb

It was always going to be a tough ask to have Marky Mark fill James Caan’s 70’s Cuban heels, but this remake falls well short of the original. It does have a decent cast, but with nothing new added you have to wonder why they bothered.

The film opens with George Kennedy on his death bed - presciently so as it turned out to be his last role. He offers sage advice to his son Jim (Marky Mark) who proceeds to ignore it, heading off instead to a casino. He has $10k, which he bets on a single hand of blackjack, which he doubles up again and again before losing the lot. The casino’s owner is owed $240k and refuses any more credit. That’s fine as Omar off ‘The Wire’ is there and offers a $50k loan for a vig of 20 points a week - ten grand to you or me.

These rates would make Brighthouse blush but Jim is an addict and pisses the cash away. If you think he doesn’t convince as a gambler wait til you see him as a university literary professor. He tells his students not to try and write unless they are a genius or Captain Marvel who has shown up, as she’s not due to save the world for at least five years. He has another student who doesn’t care for class but he’s good at basketball and needs the scholastic credit. Might come in handy later that nugget!

Jim then goes hunting for more credit with John Goodman, using the impeccable logic that he can gamble his way out of his financial hole. When that doesn’t work out he heads to his mother Jessica Lange, who gets him a big bag of cash out of the bank. Problem solved.

No wait, he’s off to Vegas with Captain Marvel and he pisses that all away too. With the loan sharks circling Jim has only one shot - his ‘in’ with his basketball playing student. Can he corrupt the youth to save his neck and if he does is he only postponing the inevitable?

As a standalone movie this was decent but it pales in comparison to its predecessor. I felt Marky was too young to convey the gravitas as a professor or the world weariness needed to portray a gambler, keen to lose his cash as soon as possible.

The film followed the same narrative lines as the original but with some changes - there is no long suffering girlfriend here, only a prospect of a better life in the shape of Brie Larson. The mother role was transplanted intact but it was a mistake to have so many loan sharks played by familiar faces. Omar and Goodman both lacked menace and were too fond of talking and not keen enough on the leg breaking. I found it hard to believe the lines of credit being offered and the fact they were cool with Jim being in hock to so many bookies.

The film tried to add a bit of tension by having captions counting down the days until the debts became due. This was mostly pointless as Jim got shaken down every day anyway.

The gambling was mostly restricted to blackjack and roulette which at least it kept simple, without rules having to be explained. The Vegas sequence was a misfire with the ‘hit me on 18’ scene stuck in at the start which totally missed the point for me - in the original this was a sign that Caan was on an unbeatable lucky streak. Here he wins that one and then loses the lot.

The film missed the thrill and sleaziness of the gambling life with most of the bets being skill free coin flips. Fair enough the man’s an inveterate gambler, but his motivations and redemption were lacking for me.

Over all a decent character piece but one lacking any real insight or tension.

THE Tagline : Stick to the Seventies!  60%

No.214 : The Cooler (2003)

The Cooler at the IMDb

Time for middle aged man wish fulfilment now - getting off with Maria Bello and winning at Vegas.

William Hall Macy, to give him his full name, stars as Bernie, a cooler in a Vegas casino. He’s basically the physical embodiment of bad luck and is employed by the casino to cool down players on a hot streak. His effectiveness is displayed by how much cream he gets in his coffee (not a metaphor) and how baggy his suit is. As the film starts he’s super baggy and cream free but that will soon change.

His casino, The Golden Shangri-La, is the last of the old school casinos, still run by the mob and holding out against the corporate takeover that has befallen many of its contemporaries. The manager Alec Baldwin likes his old school crooners and leg breaking policy, but change is on the way in the form of Ron Livingston’s corporate go-getter who is keen to transform the ageing casino.

Things change fro Bernie too as he meets up with attractive waitress Maria Bello. It’s unclear why she takes a shine to Bernie but the pair hit it off and are soon repaying Bernie’s demonstrative neighbours with sex noises of their own, albeit faked ones. This upswing in Bernie’s happiness is a dampener on his powers and soon everyone is winning on his watch. Added to the mix is Bernie’s hustler son and his possibly pregnant girlfriend and Bernie’s ambition to leave his old life behind. Can he get away and find happiness or will Baldwin display his big brass balls once again and keep him in his cooler job?

I hadn’t seen this film in many years and although I still liked it, it was hard to justify my previous 8/10 rating. It is very good with some excellent performances, but I just fund it somewhat slight the second time around. No explanation is given for Bernie’s powers and although Bello likes astrology, there is no suggestion that anything supernatural is going on. I think it was better left unexplained but as a gimmick it was a but light to carry a whole film - I could see it as an ‘X-Files’ episode quite comfortably, but as a 100 minute feature it seemed a bit padded.

Macy and Bello were good and I liked that my early thoughts that she’d never go for him were borne out when Baldwin’s scheming was revealed. It was nice that she did end up liking him after all and it’s doubtful that his piles of cash had anything to do with that. Both were fully immersed in their role and, whilst their expressions of love were justified in the context of the film, I could have done without the shots of Macy’s sweaty bum.

Baldwin was excellent as the casino boss hanging onto the old times but he didn’t quite match the intensity of his ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ performance. It was also good to see Ron Livingston off ‘Office Space’ and ‘Band of Brothers’ but he didn’t get much to work with as the corporate face of Vegas’ future.

There were some quite brutal scenes of women being beaten up and the film wasn’t shy is showing Vegas’ seamy underbelly, but a pat ending made for an enjoyable if slightly underwhelming experience.


THE Tag Line : Worth a Flutter 70%

No.144 : The House (2017)

The House at the IMDb

I found The House lurking on Amazon Prime and was surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before, given its decent cast and production values. Having watched it, I find that its relative anonymity is well deserved.

Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler play a married middle class couple with a teenage daughter. They are a bit hard up despite living in a house that would make Barbie blush, in a neighbourhood with no beggars or dog shit on the streets. Things are relative I guess and their main concern is that they can’t afford to send their dull daughter to college.

Things should be OK though, as their daughter is the favourite to get a free college scholarship from the local town council. Guess they are the most needy after all! The rug is pulled however when the sleazy town councilman reveals that the sponsorship has been cancelled to pay for the new town pool. We later learn that he is stealing the cash to finance his affair with his well seated colleague, but more of that later.

Our happy couple try various ways to get the college money but after failing to get pay rises and loans they have no option but to try and gamble their meagre funds up, using the expertise of their gambling friend, Frank. The fact that Frank’s house lacks any furniture and his wife is leaving him doesn’t raise any red flags, so they head off to Vegas. After a great winning spell, sponsored by the Wynn Hotel, they lose the lot and are resigned to having the daughter hanging about the house for the next three years. But wait! There’s always breaking the law!

With indecent haste (well it is a 88 minute film), they set up a casino in Frank’s house. Things are small scale for about five minutes, but before long it’s a massive operation with neon lights, topless dancers and headline acts. Will the operation last long enough to raise the required funds? Will the corrupt councilman or the local mob get the cash or will truth and justice prevail and they all go to jail?

I was set up to really hate this film as it had all the hallmarks of a lazy cash in with blank spots in various stars’ diaries blocked out for a couple of weeks for an easy payday. As it was, I only slightly disliked it and there was the odd laugh - albeit cheap and shameful ones.

Ferrell and Poehler play off well together and they are wise not to bother with acting - you want them as you know them and that’s what you get. Poehler is done a disservice by the wardrobe department as they have her running about in baggy, unflattering shorts, as well as by the script which only gave her one good line about a Giant’s dick. Ferrell gets most of the funny stuff and despite doing his usual hapless idiot bit he has a few decent scenes, especially as ‘The Butcher’.

There are a lot of familiar faces thrown in for your money including a congressman off ‘Veep’ and David Wallace off ‘The Office’, who was criminally underused.

The plot, as it is, hits its marks from A to B to C with the minimum of fuss, with the predictable loss of the takings getting sorted out in about five minutes. ‘The villain’ of the corrupt politician was no threat at all and the film lacked any sense of danger. To have him as a whiny idiot with a fat fetish was a mistake as the outcome was never in doubt with him as the opposition.

The morals of the film are pretty low with drugs and gambling being celebrated along with the beating up of women, murder, illegal dice games etc. I thought there would be a moral lesson at the end but no - get your money however you can, and screw the consequences. I was fine with this but the film felt uneven with lots of things thrown at the wall with only a few of them sticking. For example in a two minute sequence there were nods to ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Six Million Dollar man’ - apropos of nothing whatsoever.

There were a couple of chuckles and surprises though, and I especially liked Jeremy Renner showing up as a mob hit man who really should have stayed at home.

All in all this was a decent distraction but I wouldn’t be doubling down on any sequel.

THE Tagline - A Busted Flush! 62%