Directors - Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden
Fairly run-of-the-mill poker film that starts off well enough despite lifting it's opening first third from Robert Altman's superior California Split, then quickly pisses away any promise by the time the end credits role. A chance meeting between Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) and Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) results in the two of them hitting the road for a high stakes poker game in New Orleans. The characters never really come to life and the direction is fairly flat. Reynolds doesn't stand a chance next to an on form Mendelsohn as the grubby low-life. Disappointing.
Director - Philip Haas
Underrated to the point of being forgotten adaptation of one of Paul Auster’s best novels. Jack (James Spader) is an aces poker player off to play a high stakes game against a couple of excentric millionaires. The only thing is he doesn’t have the stake money, enter Jim (Mandy Patinkin aka Saul from Homeland), who just happens to have a few grand floating around. Things don’t go as planned and that’s when it all gets a bit weird. Well worth hunting down, Spader is on top form and this even has a Auster cameo where he proves in a few seconds of screen time that he can’t act anywhere near as good as he writes.
