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. 

Movie Review: Big Trouble

Big Trouble (2002) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld 

Written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, Dave Barry 

Starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Ben Foster, Stanley Tucci, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee

Release Date April 5th, 2002 

Published October 14th, 2002 

Of the many things to be lost in the shuffle after 9/11, one of the strangest was the movie Big Trouble. 

A comedy based on a book by humorist Dave Barry and directed by Men In Black’s Barry Sonnenfeld, Big Trouble stars Tim Allen as a Dave Barry-like newspaper columnist who becomes involved with a plot to buy a nuclear weapon. Because the nuclear weapon was at a certain point in the film on an airplane, the film became a hot potato and was pulled from it’s September 2001 release. After nearly 8 months on the shelf the film finally made it to the big screen on April 5th and tanked badly. Now the film is available on DVD, and it deserves a second chance.

Tim Allen stars as Eliot Arnold who, after being fired from his job writing for a newspaper, takes up advertising only to find his sense of humor unappreciated by clients who believe naked flesh is the best way to sell products. Outside of work Eliot is dealing with a divorce and a teenage son who thinks he is a loser. Ben Foster is Eliot’s son Matt who is constantly making fun of Dad for driving a Geo Metro, a perfectly Dave Barry bit.

Matt is pursuing a girl in his school named Jenny Herk, whose father, Arthur (Stanley Tucci), is jerk who is in trouble with the mob. Jenny’s mother, Anna (Rene Russo), is slowly realizing that she hates Arthur and can’t remember why she married the jerk. After Matt attempts to shoot Jenny at her house with a water gun as part of a twisted high school game, Eliot comes to pick him up and he and Anna hit it off. 

Meanwhile Arthur is being pursued by two hitmen, played by Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler, and Arthur is attempting to get back at the mob by purchasing a nuclear weapon from a pair of Russian bar owners. As Arthur is making his purchase at the bar, two moron thieves, Johnny Knoxville and Tom Sizemore, decide to rob the place and end up stealing the nuclear weapon. All of these people come together when the morons kidnap Arthur and go to his place to rob it. 

Also in the cast are Patrick Warburton and Janeane Garofalo as cops, and a very funny cameo by Andy Richter as a bumbling mall security guard. Also, Jason Lee as the film's narrator Puggy, a homeless guy who witnesses everything while living in a tree outside the Herk’s home. Let us not forget Heavy D and Omar Epps as FBI agents with an executive order that allows them to do anything they want.

The film is often very funny, but it’s also very muddled. There are numerous moments where the film's story could have been tightened up. For instance, though I thought Andy Richter’s cameo was funny, it has nothing to do with the main story and easily could have been cut without affecting the central story. Director Barry Sonnenfeld likely had to keep the Richter cameo just to keep the film feature length. The film is a mere 89 minutes long.

Despite the running time and the occasionally lackadaisical scripting, Big Trouble is still a very funny movie. It’s all in the dialogue, screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone smartly retain most of Dave Barry’s original dialogue. It is the dialogue and the spirited cast that make Big Trouble so much fun. Given the release date shenanigans and the unfortunate 9/11 related issues, it's a wonder that Big Trouble made it to release at all. Now that it is available on home video, I hope people forget the trouble and give this movie a chance. 

Movie Review Showtime

Showtime (2002) 

Directed by Tom Dey 

Written by Keith Sharon

Starring Eddie Murphy, Robert DeNiro, Rene Russo, Kadeem Hardison, Nestor Serrano 

Release Date March 15th, 2002

Published March 14th, 2002 

The buddy cop movie is a dying genre. For every Rush Hour and Lethal Weapon there are any number of odd couple mismatched partners. One partner is the gruff vet, the other is the crazy wildman. They fly around big cities fighting drug dealers and terrorists, blowing up city blocks and killing any number of people with no consequence. The latest example of this mindless stupidity is the Deniro-Murphy mismatched buddy cop movie Showtime.

Robert Deniro is the gruff but lovable detective who breaks all the rules, and always gets his man. Deniro's most recent bust cost the city of Los Angeles millions of dollars. The only way to pay the debt is to team up with a pretty TV producer (Rene Russo) for a Cops-style reality TV show. Of course Deniro, while he's a good cop, isn't very friendly. The producer decides he needs a wacky partner. Enter Eddie Murphy as a beat cop who wants to be an actor. Eddie sees the TV show as a way to further his acting career. So now we have our gruff but lovable lead and wacky off the wall partner, now we need a colorful bad guy.

Well the bad guy in Showtime wasn't all that colorful, I honestly can't remember whether the baddies were drug dealer or terrorists. Actually, they might have been drug-dealing terrorists. It doesn't really matter.

Eddie Murphy is a spectacularly funny actor, but he needs to make better decisions. As the star of Beverly Hills Cop, Murphy was Mr. Attitude. He was the coolest guy in the room and he knew it. In Murphy's most recent roles he has allowed himself to become less confident, less cool. Murphy has allowed himself to be made the fool. Eddie's appeal is as the Bugs Bunny of the action movie. He is at his best when his character is one step ahead of everybody, cracking wise and kicking ass. In Showtime and his most recent work he has been buffoonish and it's not fun to watch. Like Willie Mays with the New York Mets or Michael Jordan with the Washington Wizards, Eddie Murphy has lost a step.

It isn't just Murphy that makes Showtime a dull movie. Combine Murphy's performance with Deniro's sleepwalking and the lame dying mismatched buddy cop movie and you get Showtime. 

Movie Review Tin Cup

Tin Cup (1996) 

Directed by Ron Shelton 

Written by John Norville 

Starring Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson 

Release Date August 16th, 1996

Published August 15th, 2016

The game of golf is mysterious; it honors neither will nor skill. The game affords license to the talented but even talent will on occasion be humbled by the gods of the game, Mother Nature and Lady Luck. A squirrel runs across a perfectly good lie leaving a small dent and fates are changed forever. That is golf that is life.

Such a perfect thing as well struck golf shot 

For Roy McAvoy it’s not the gods or the squirrels, though he is a little nuts, rather it’s all in his head. Roy has the talent; he has in the past had favor of the gods but he simply cannot get out of his own way. Once when attempting to qualify for the PGA Tour he went for a seemingly impossible shot, missed, tried again and eventually cost himself a tour card. 

That was decades ago. Today, Roy or ‘Tin Cup’ to his friends, is a small time golf instructor at a beyond run down East Texas driving range marked by a sign announcing ‘Last chance to hit golf balls for 540 miles.’ That anyone has ever stopped at this establishment where Roy and his menagerie of friends bide their time betting on which bug will die first in the bug zapper, seems unlikely.

Waggle it 

Then, in walks a very beautiful woman. Her name is Dr. Molly Griswold and she is the new shrink in town and for some reason she wants golf lessons. Rene Russo plays Molly and her discomfort with comedy is evident in her stilted delivery and inability to punch a punch line, something about a saddle.

Despite the struggle, she and we, through her, meet the real Tin Cup, Kevin Costner’s unendingly charming, slightly drunken rogue. Irresistible to women and admired by men who can’t quite figure out why they admire him; this is the Kevin Costner of “Bull Durham,” of “Field of Dreams” and in moments from later films like “For Love of the Game” and “The Upside of Anger.”

Like a tuning fork in your heart  

That ridiculous grin, that floppy, fading hairline and the fact that he’s rarely seen the inside of a gym are just some of the reasons that Kevin Costner became an icon, an actor who will be forever marked in the memory of film fans. Before he gave up everything in favor of an inflated ego and the notion of being a respected ‘artist,’ Kevin Costner was an everyman who loved having a good time and inviting audiences to join him.

No director understood that side of Kevin Costner quite as well as “Tin Cup” director Ron Shelton. It was Shelton’s “Bull Durham” that delivered Costner to stardom in “Bull Durham” and in “Tin Cup” nearly rescued Costner from the excesses of his artistic tripe. Sadly, only flashes of that Costner remain while Shelton himself struggled to find other stars that could enliven his work in the way Costner had.

“Tin Cup” is a movie about a golfer but it’s also a time capsule of a movie moment, one when an actor and a director came together in an absolute understanding of how to entertain an audience. The cohesiveness of Shelton and Costner’s effort is evident in each wonderful scene of “Tin Cup” as Costner strides through Shelton’s scene setting in perfect pitch, striking each line and hitting each lopsided punch line not unlike a well struck tee shot.

The Shanks

Drawing out the metaphor to its farthest reaches, Kevin Costner is “Tin Cup.” Hindsight forces the film critic in me to see that as Roy chooses to pass on the chance to win the US Open in favor of trying to land one difficult shot that repeatedly eluded him that Costner’s “Waterworld” was one of those shots that landed short of the green. So were “The Postman” and “Message” in a Bottle attempts at greatness that courted failure and failed.

Thankfully, there is “Tin Cup” which, unknown to Costner in 1996 as he was making it, was that one perfectly struck shot that you feel in your loins that lands on the green, earning the roar of the crowd. As Roy says “You define the moment or the moment defines you.” For a moment, Kevin Costner was defined by Tin Cup and it was glorious. Today, he is defined in so many other ways, far less glorious. Such is the heroic quest for that one perfect shot.

Greatness courts failure Romeo

When people talk about golf and movies they think of “Caddyshack.” Nothing could ever take away from the comic genius of Caddyshack but, as golf movies go, for me and a growing cult, “Tin Cup” is the ultimate golf movie. Roy ‘Tin Cup’ McAvoy is both a guy all of us know and a representation of something in ourselves; that always striving, often failing part that takes comfort in the little things like a drink, good friends and a good woman. 

It’s golf season again and “Tin Cup” is out there on each and every course seeking the greatness in a single shot when par would have been good enough. Such is life.