Notes from SX: Even Money

When scanning the SXSW listings, the cast of Even Money jumped out at Austinist. Ray Liotta, Tim Roth, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Jay Mohr, and Kelsey Grammer in a gambling film? We were game, especially when we saw that perennial 70's and 80's drama director Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond, The Rose) was also present. Man, did SXSW ambush us with this one.

The actual film wasn't an ensemble drama on par with Crash or Magnolia. Instead, it most resembles some USA or Lifetime 'issue' movie you might stumble across while home on a sick day. The flim clumsily attempts to show the perils of gambling addiction, but does so in such an obvious and overemoting way that one just has to groan early and often at the poor screenwriting...and at the fact that the cast actually read and liked the script! The bad musical score and silly film noir touches (like Mr. Grammer as a trenchcoat wearing, crutch-ridden detective) only add to the "surely you're kidding me" factor. Even old pros like Forest Whitaker get stuck in thankless and cheesy roles spouting things like "I've just gotta get back to even, OK?" Only Tim Roth seems to be having any fun with this, and that's because he's the token slimy villain in the piece. Roth gets all of the best lines, and when he's not on screen, the picture is just dying a slow death.

This movie reminded us of nothing so much as Fever Pitch, a really goofy Ryan O'Neal film about gambling addiction shown at the second Quentin Tarantino fest back in 1997. That a movie with such a starry cast should remind us of something that Tarantino was showing with movies like Ghetto Freaks should explain the degree to which this movie will disappoint. Slowly back away from this sucker bet.