No.223 : The Gambler (1980)

The Gambler (1980) at the IMDb

It’s quite common to have hit songs come from a film, but it’s less usual to have a film made around a hit song. Such is the case here in our third ‘The Gambler’ offering in short order. Dare you place a wager as to which is best? Clue : It’s not this one!

In doing my usual exhaustive research I was surprised to learn that this was the first of five films in ‘The Gambler’ franchise. All were TV movies and each starred Kenny Rogers as the wily and wise card player, Brady Hawkes.

The film sets its stall out early doors with ‘The Gambler’ predictably playing over the titles. Kenny was 42 when this came out so he’s clearly meant to be the one doling out the advice rather than the one asking for it. That said maybe he’s the non-dead one in the song, now grown up.

Anyway, Kenny rides his horse slowly into town and makes his way to the station waiting room which could not look more like a set if it had ‘This is a set’ written all over it. We’ve already met young card sharp Billy Montana who has tried and failed to pick up a single lady with his tales of his journey to a big poker tournament in San Francisco. He takes on and beats a couple of poker players who accuse him of cheating and who draw guns on him. Fortunately Kenny has arrived and exposes them as cheats and sends them on their way. He also notes that Billy was cheating too, but he was better at it than his marks.

Kenny enlists the lady to deal the cards and he gives Billy a lesson in five card stud. At no point does anyone swear or stab anyone and you just know we’re in the version of old west, where values remain strong and no one says ‘motherfucker’. With the wisdom now extolled, the long awaited train is ready to leave now that the rich owner has arrived. We also learn that Kenny is on a mission, no not to sell chicken but to answer a letter. We hear it read out by a young lad who claims Kenny is his Dad - rubbish he doesn’t even have a beard. He says his mother kept him a secret, so that we know Kenny isn’t a bastard, but now they need help.

The son’s mother has a Mrs Skywalker relationship with his step-father and can’t escape his evil clutches, but the boy gets away and meets up with Kenny on the train. Meanwhile the rich railroad owner has set up a $10k a head card game involving Kenny, Montana and a hired card sharp, The Doc. Soon the hangers on are eliminated and it’s down to the last hand. Can Kenny win and will he outsmart the boy’s father’s henchmen who lie in wait? Can the boy escape his servitude and will Kenny gets some more homilies in before the credits roll? Yes to everything!

This would fall strictly into the ‘does what it says on the tin’ file and you would be hard pressed to find fault in this gentle offering. Let’s try anyway. Rodgers is no actor and tends to mistake talking slowly for wisdom. He hobbles about on a stick but is as fast a cheetah when chucking folk out of windows or over bars. Hope the DSS are watching.

Everyone listens with rapt attention when Kenny starts giving out his wise words, including a long conversation with the lady who turns out to be a reformed whore. Kenny tells her that’s all good and she’s very grateful to him. Not that grateful though.

The poker scenes were decent with a king high losing to a pair of fours in one hand of five card stud. It did all fall apart in the last hand however, when Kenny starts to shove in the chips despite facing three aces with a card to come. ‘That’s way they call it gambling’ he says wisely - no Kenny, that’s what they call suicidal bankroll management.

Bruce Boxleitner was likeable as Montana, but I doubt he’d last five minutes in the real old west. That said, Kenny’s large ass would be hung out to dry as soon as he took on three gringos with his stick, so there is an element of disbelief being suspended throughout.

You could show this one to your granny if she was OK with talk about whores and unlikely straight flushes. Right onto the sequels for me.

That was a bluff!

THE Tag Line : You Gotta Know When to Watch ‘Em and When Not to Bother 57%

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.218 : The Gambler (1974)

The Gambler (1974)

With our revolutionary new policy of adding the year of release after the film’s title we can now do pair ups of same named films. These may be remakes & originals or just the same name, different film. The options are literally two.

First up in this double bill-athon is the original ‘The Gambler’ from 1974. Don’t fret, there’s no Kenny Rogers in sight - this is a gritty look at the world of betting and gangsters.

James Caan plays ‘Axel’ a literary professor who is an inveterate gambler. We see him at first in a back street joint losing $44k - and that was a lot of money in 1974 - over a quarter of a million in today’s bucks. It’s not clear at first why get gets so much credit but we soon learn he comes from a rich family who bail him out. He has a lovely girlfriend in Lauren Hutton and a sweet Mustang, but he still needs his gambling hit.

He manages to get his mother to give him the cash, who extracts it from James Woods' slimy banker, but he’s straight off to Vegas to gamble it up. Despite winning, he soon loses the lot and more owing to his habit of picking the losers in every basketball match.

With Lauren fed up and his family despairing, Caan has one last card to play - will he get out from under or is he in a death spiral, from which there is no escape?

That quick summary covers more or less all of the plot, in what is a pretty straightforward film. As soon as we meet Caan he’s in a hole, a hole that he manages to make progressively worse as the film goes on. It was a great lesson in observation with many classic gambling traits rote large. He explains that he needs the action, so even when he’s ahead, it’s never enough. He’s a brave man as a cavalcade of familiar mob leg breakers dog his every step including Paul Sorvino and Paulie off ‘Rocky’.

Caan was excellent as the tunnel visioned Axel, who couldn’t see beyond the next big score. The film did show the highs of being a gambler too, with a great sequence in Vegas seeing him ride his luck to the point he was hitting on 18 as he knew a ‘3’ would be the next card. It never lasts though!

The chaos he creates for his family and friends was well done with his mother a picture of resignation. There was some confusion about where he was with his debts and who he owed, but I guess that would be a deliberate ploy to show how mixed up Axel’s life was. There were loads of great character actors on show with Huggy Bear being a standout at the end as , you’ll never guess, a pimp.

I felt the film should have ended with the climatic basketball matched but it meandered another ten minutes just to show that the spiral would continue as greater thrills were sought. Some things are better implied, but at least we got Huggy shouting some jive.

Overall this was a great character piece that was well observed and acted and it may even make you think twice the next time you fancy £5 on ‘Lucky Lad‘ in the Chepstow 5.15.

THE Tag Line : Take a bet on this  78%

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%

No.89 : The Kentuckian (1955)

The Kentuckian at the IMDb

Burt Lancaster starred and directed this 1955 undemanding but overlong western.

He plays Big Eli, a frontiersman who feels civilisation has encroached too much onto his world and takes his son off on a quest to make a life in Texas where land is measured by your eye, not a rope and chain. Sadly this is easier said than done as low cost airlines are still some time away. Burt has saved up $215 to pay his passage and to secure some land. His boy is at the precocious age of being most annoying and Burt tells him he won’t be a man until he can blow a horn - don’t ask.

The pair soon encounter some small minded townsfolk who dislike Burt’s penchant for dog fighting. They slam him in the jail and he has to rely on a nice local lass for vitals. The girl, Hannah, is a kind of slave who is in servitude to her boss, who happens to be an abusive dick. She manages to free Burt, but his faithful dog leads the baddies to their campfire. Burt agrees to spend his whole bankroll on freeing the woman but even then still it seems cheap!

Burt arrives at his brother in law’s home and not surprisingly his hosts aren’t too impressed with his new purchase. The brother in law dislikes Burt’s lifestyle and presumably the coonskin cap he’s wearing, that no doubt stinks to high heaven. He tries to talk Burt out of his Texan dream and sets him up in a fancy suit and tries to teach him his tobacco selling business.

Burt however is more keen on Sophie, the local school teacher who is slightly hotter than Hannah but does come with the baggage of a crippled mother whom we only hear from up the stairs; and believe me she sounds a total nightmare. The boy however prefers Hannah and soon his own life is getting tougher as Dad’s mess ups cause him no end of high school hassles. Burt you see, has made a tit of himself as a freshwater pearl he found and sent to the President turns out to be worthless and send the whole town into fits of giggles.

Rather than lose face Burt decides to restore his bankroll and in an almost slapstick scene hustles some river boat gamblers by pretending to be a sucker with a large bag marked ‘$’. With his money now restored Burt has the choice of the ladies and of a life as a tobacco baron or as a Texan rancher. But wait! Walter Matthau and his handy whip may still have a part to play as will the boy’s horn.

This was an OK western but at approaching two hours it didn’t have enough meat on the bones to sustain the journey. Burt is a Daniel Boone type character rallying against the advancements society has made while he’s been rolling about in the dirt. His sage wisdom grated and his annoying son did nothing to help the viewer’s affections towards the pair. The women were mere chattels that Burt could pick and choose while they looked on with pathetic hopefulness. His big choice at the end was based on the burden of the mother in law more than the affection he felt for either woman, which makes him a stand up dude.

I did enjoy some aspects especially Walter Matthau’s character who was a sadistic bastard who was handy with the whip and the riverboat scene was good fun although totally out of kilter with the rest of the film.

All things considered the film wasn’t a hit but it did have enough elements to suggest a look if there’s nothing else on and your DVD player is broken.

THE Tag Line - Whip It Real Good
53%