Even Money

There's quite a few fine films that explore the darker side to gambling and the soul crushing effects it has on people. The destruction of lives, relationships, families, jobs, etc. The best humanize these characters with their sickness at their best and their worst. Perhaps that's what 'Even Money' was trying for amongst other things on its mind.

Simply put, the movie has too many players involved and too much going on. In a bid to be grandiose and end in epic all-tied-together fashion - it ultimately feels heartless and forced. The principal players are as follows. Kim Basinger is an addicted gambler writer with a family. She links up with Danny DeVito who's an over the hill magician also addicted to gambling looking to get his glory back. Forest Whitaker uses his skilled athlete brother (Nick Cannon) to point shave his basketball games to keep the wolves (he's deeply indebted to) at bay.

If you like a lot of recognizable faces in the cast you certainly get it here. In secondary roles you have the likes of Ray Liotta, Tim Roth, Carla Gugino, Jay Mohr and Kelsey Grammer. It's also with these names unnecessary plot points and side stories occur. In the case of Liotta in particular, he gets to play the husband to Basinger as the truth comes out and their family gets torn apart.

'Even Money' isn't a horrible film. The acting is generally decent and it doesn't go all Hollywood giving upbeat, positive endings to all of the characters. However it also doesn't reach a satisfying place, only sporadically entertains and you'll have a hard time liking many of the faces involved.

"Even Money" is an ensemble drama that aims to be the Traffic or Syriana of gambling, but comes off closer to Crash—a trite amalgam of scenes we've seen many, many times before. The fact that you've heard so little about a film with such an impressive cast (Kim Basinger, Ray Liotta, Danny DeVito, Tim Roth, Kelsey Grammar, Nick Cannon, Jay Mohr, Carla Gugino, Forest Whitaker) should tell you something; indeed, the scuttlebutt on the ol' World Wide Internets is that the film was headed straight to DVD until Whitaker picked up the Oscar.

The cast is mostly good, but there's only so much that they can do with this material. Basinger and Liotta are especially hard up, stranded in a story thread that is older than the hills; poor Carla Gugino is stuck playing the same scene (by my count) three times straight, which is a criminal misuse of an actress as intelligent and sexy as she. Tim Roth has some nice moments as an especially snarky bad guy, though this viewer wondered if he would really show up at the college basketball game that provides the film's climax (with a resolution that can be clearly seen the moment the story turn is introduced). Kelsey Grammar (nearly unrecognizable) appears, at the film's beginning, to be doing an interesting piece of character acting as a cop, but he then disappears for over an hour, which makes his character's big final scene somewhat less than compelling.

"Even Money" is a mess, an attempt to manufacture a prestige picture by throwing many talented actors at a script whose most complex insight appears to be "gambling is bad". We should expect as much from producer Bob Yari, who gave us the aforementioned "Crash" ("racism is bad"). Director Mark Rydell has helmed a couple of successful films ("On Golden Pond", "The Cowboys") and some interesting failures ("Intersection", "The Rose"), but when he pops up briefly as a powerful figure at the end of "Even Money", all I could think of was his similar acting role in Altman's "The Long Goodbye", and how much I'd rather be watching that movie than this one.

An all-star ensemble cast, including Kim Bassinger, Danny DeVito, Kelsey Grammar, and especially a deliciously evil Tim Roth make this a worthwhile view into the addictions of gambling.

Although part of the film's plot is taken directly from the James Caan film, The Gambler, it is still effective in most other areas. However, most of the film's outcomes are predictable, with one exception that I thought was a very nice twist. I will not reveal the twist, but it is truly unexpected.

The addictions are authentic, but some of the characterizations were a bit over the top. Davito's character did not seem realistic to me, but the writer/housewife character was well done. The film is completely stolen by TIm Roth, who creates such a gloriously hateful character. The movie is worth viewing just for his performance.

I 've made up my mind to try to be succinct in my reviews, brief, to the point. This will be more helpful to me and to the readers here. Art should speak for itself, reviews are not diatribes.

It's a testament to the continued ignorance and emotionally shallowness of the majority (even at IMDb that is an IQ/eq click over the median) that decent films get sub par ratings, and atrocious ones get good ones. That said it's always heartening to see that an informed minority (who's voted 30/45 on another reviewer's positive review) has got the sense and the sensibility (to paraphrase one of the loveliest wordplays ever) to appreciate good films within their differing opinions of taste, background, world view, frame of mind.

This is one of those films that is actually quite good, yet you 'd never know that from the rating or some reviews here. First of all we have an excellent cast of seasoned actors giving fine, tempered performances, not overdone, not understated, just fine tuned performances all around. So the drama or the twists aren't spectacular, so what? There's plenty of humanity here and emotion to keep one's interest. A special vote to Kim Basinger who isn't getting the recognition she deserves, she's adorable here and she's grown to be a splendid actress, despite the ensemble cast the real star here is her. All in all a very sweet film.

I worked in Hollywood when this script made the rounds. (I've now come to my senses and make my living in another field.)

I can tell you that it was a fantastic script. Highly ambitious.

The reason it is not as good a movie as the screenplay is due to the producer and the director.

It's a shame because it should have been a fantastic movie.

Trust me when I say that all the stars got attached because of the script. None of them got paid near what they usually make. (The producer is notoriously cheap.)

There are some wonderful moments which remain, but when I watched it, I just wanted to get back in the business and remake it as it should have been made the first time!

Pity.

A lot of things need to come together to make a great film.