Movie Review: Two for the Money

Two for the Money (2005) 

Directed by D.J Caruso 

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Armand Assante, Jeremy Piven

Release Date October 7th, 2005

Published October 7th, 2005 

Director D.J. Caruso may have peaked too soon. His feature directing debut The Salton Sea is a gritty noir masterpiece that overcomes simplistic comparisons to Tarantino by out Quentin-ing Quentin. The combination of grit and style is perfect and everything comes together with the career redefining performance of Val Kilmer.

So what happened? Caruso moved up to studio pictures with the thriller Taking Lives and delivered a stylish piece of mainstream formulaic garbage. Now with yet another slick mainstream disappointment, albeit much improved, it is definitely time to return to the indies. The sports gambling melodrama Two For The Money is fast paced and stylish but compared to Salton Sea, it's simply not up to snuff when coming from a former indie auteur.

Two For The Money stars Matthew McConaughey as Brandon Long, a failed college quarterback who, after blowing out his knee in a big game, keeps his NFL dreams alive with failed tryouts in the arena league. While he awaits his return to the field he works as a wage slave at nine hundred number recording service.

Brandon's life-changing moment comes when the guy who records the NFL picks gets sick and Brandon takes his place. His ability to pick winners is Rainman-esqe and earns him the attention of gambling guru, Walter Abrams (Al Pacino). Abrams' sports advisors are a fly by night operation that skirts the anti-sports gambling laws by "advising" gamblers in exchange for a piece of their winnings.

Abrams transplants Brandon from his mother's house to a penthouse in New York City. Soon Brandon Lang is gone and John Anthony 'The Million Dollar Man' is in. Again Brandon's winning streak is uncanny and millions begin pouring in. However, as Jeremy Piven's fellow prognosticator points out; the sports gambling gods are fickle and soon Brandon/John Anthony's win streak is over.

Two For The Money moves at a quick clip and is a slickly organized character piece that falls prey to sports movie cliches even while only on the outskirts of the actual sport. What Fast and The Furious did for fast cars Two For The Money does for sports gambling, capturing the pulse pounding excitement, the visceral high of winning and the cost of losing.

What the film does best is capture the character of a true addict. Pacino essays a performance here with elements of his satanic character in Devils Advocate and his beleaguered publicist in the underappreciated People I Know and crafts one of his best performances of the past ten years. Pacino has not been this on key since Donnie Brasco and while it's not an Oscar worthy return to form-- the film itself is too flawed for that-- watching Pacino on his game is a real delight.

Matthew McConaughey still has a way to go to shed the lightweight image he has earned for onscreen fare like How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days and The Wedding Planner and offscreen for his much publicized love life and bongo playing. Breezy plot free actioners like Sahara have not helped either. In Two For The Money McConaughey strikes beefcake poses and makes goo goo eyes at Rene Russo, as Pacino's wife, but fails to deliver anything below the surface.

A feature narrative at its most basic level follows a character through a life changing experience that should make them wiser in the end. Essentially the lead character needs to learn a lesson. In Two For The Money Brandon begins one way and ends up just the same way. You never get the sense that he learns anything other than you can't trust a man like Walter Abrams. What lesson does Brandon really learn? How is he changed forever? Is he just never going to work for Walter again? Not much of a lesson really.

Pacino's character has a similarly flat arc. In the beginning Walter is reformed from every possible vice. As Russo's character puts it, if there is a meeting for it he goes. Once he takes on Brandon, cleans him up, and starts living vicariously through his winning, he succumbs to his demons and soon is the devil he once was. But was he ever really reformed? The film dangles a number of loose ends as to Walter's many vices and never ties them up.

Despite the troubled plot there is still alot to enjoy about Two For The Money, especially in D.J. Caruso's lightning fast pace and stylish big city setting. Caruso keeps the movie running at a rate that seems impossible to sustain and keeps it going all the way to the finish. The fast pace is probably there to cover up the thin narrative but it also serves to amp up the visceral excitement of winning and losing that pervades every scene. What Two For The Money lacks in depth it nearly makes up for in excitement.

But the best part about Two For The Money is the old school Pacino in rare form. Watch a scene where Pacino and McConaughey attend a gamblers anonymous meeting. Pacino's soliloquy on the gamblers love of losing is a four minute masterpiece of delivery and actorly flair. It's so good he really should have taken a curtain call.

The film captures the high that winning and even losing gamblers feel when in the thick of a big score. With a quick pace and polished look you barely notice that the film is all shiny surface. The filmmaking is so strong I can recommend it simply for the panache and composition alone. I cannot makes heads or tales of a betting line but the mechanics of sports betting are not the subject of Two For The Money but rather a vehicle for creating tension and excitement.

The betting line can make even the lamest sunday NFL contest a tense nail biter. Your team not only has to win the game they have to win by a particular number of points. Sometimes your team does not have to win the game for you to cash in.  They merely must lose by a particular number of points. You can even wager on how many points both teams will score in the game or which team will score first.  All very complicated for someone not in the know like myself.

Two For The Money is not for the recovering gambler, safe to say. The film makes sports betting look incredibly exciting and kinetic and will entice more than a few moviegoers into placing a few bets of their own. If the plot had come together a little better maybe the film itself would be as exciting as its betting lines. As it is Two For The Money is a flawed but always interesting movie that at the very least reinvigorates the moribund career of Al Pacino. For that alone Two For The Money is worth betting the price of a movie ticket.

Movie Review Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler (2014)

Directed by Dan Gilroy

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed

Release Date October 31st, 2014

Published October 30th, 2014

This article contains spoilers for the movie Nightcrawler. If you haven't seen it, see it and come back for this article. If you have seen it, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments. 

“Nightcrawler” tells the story of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a professional criminal in search of a job that can combine his blind ambition with his lack of a moral compass. He finds such a job when he witnesses a professional cameraman, Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), crawling over policemen and firefighters to get as close as possible to a fiery car accident. Joe’s ethos is ‘If it bleeds, it leads.' Lou never knew such a job existed; one that could nurture his lack of empathy and his blind ambition. 

Nina Romina (Rene Russo) is the perfect enabler for Lou Bloom. His equal in blind ambition and desperation, Nina is the 3rd shift News Director for the last place network in Los Angeles. When Nina meets Lou, she’s not all that impressed but desperate for a top story with some blood on it, she buys Lou’s footage and he gets his foot in the door. When next they see each other Lou has gone to some obviously ethically challenged lengths to get footage inside of a home that was struck by bullets from a drive by shooting. While Nina’s colleagues recognize the trouble with the footage, Nina has dollar signs in her eyes and buys the footage to air as the lead on that night’s newscast.

In Joe Loder and Nina Romina, Lou Bloom finds a unique parentage. In meeting Joe Loder and finding out what he does for a living the true Lou Bloom is born. When Joe rejects Lou, refusing Lou's attempts at friendship and job-seeking, Lou goes into business for himself and finds a welcome mothering figure in Nina. We can see in their first interaction that Nina has a soft spot for the soft spoken and unassuming Lou. When Lou begins delivering one big exclusive video scoop after another her pride in her pseudo-progeny bursts forward like that of a proud mother.

Things become twisted as Lou competes with Joe for scoops and the rivalry turns violent when Lou literally attempts to kill Joe by sabotaging Joe's mobile news van. If you posit Joe as a father figure to Lou by his having inspired Lou's new profession then the symbolism here becomes very important. Lou has eliminated the competition for the attention of Nina, also his top business competition and rival for Nina's money.

Then Lou turns his full attention to Nina, first demanding a date and when his advance is rebuffed he goes further by demanding a sexual relationship. Having removed his main rival for Nina's attention and money, Lou has a grave advantage over Nina and presses that advantage to take what he wants; sleeping with his surrogate mother/benefactor, sealing his true identity as a psychopath.

In the end, "Nightcrawler" is the story of Lou Bloom's journey to realization of his true nature. Yes, he was a psychopath before the movie began but once he meets Joe and Nina, the evolution towards accepting his true nature begins. We see him explore his amoral world, find his footing in a place where his lack of empathy, concern for others and blind, frothing ambition are welcome traits and in finally taking Nina as his conquest and vanquishing his rival, we find a man fully realized in all his psychopathic glory

Horrifying as it most certainly is, this strange arc makes Nightcrawler an endlessly fascinating character study. In Jake Gyllenhaal we have an actor capable of giving Lou Bloom's growing mania and lack of empathy a wide range of expression. Gyllenhaal's ability to switch gears from sniveling conniver to over-confifdent badass is something impossible to look away from. The birth and quick evolution of Lou's new persona, the perfect expression of his unwell psyche, is utterly riveting. 

Dan Gilroy's crisp, clean direction, gives remarkable life to the story of Nightcrawler. The film's imagery is vital and viscreral, it couches Lou Bloom in a very recognizable reality that he can stand out from as he becomes more and more deluded and dangerous. Lou Bloom both fits in perfectly amid the outsized characters who chase the news and stands apart from them as his actions express the the often ugly extremes of our modern news culture.

And yet, there is so much more to Nightcrawler., Each relationship Nick carries out in Nightcrawler is rife with meanings that can be parsed for days. I mentioned the pseudo-parental figures of Paxton and Russo and just take a moment to consider those relationships in the context provided by Nightcrawler. Each is rife with taunting questions about the parent child dynamic, the boss and subordinate dynamic and the passive and aggressive dynamic, the one that arguably defines much of Nightcrawler as Lou quickly moves from passive bystander to the aggressor in every aspect of his life.