Review of Poker Movie ‘Deal’
It’s pretty easy to see these days how poker is pretty much covered from head to toe with swarming crud flies of overdone acting and bad acting. When I heard about the movie ‘Deal,’ a new film starring Burt Reynolds with cameos by a ton of poker pros from Antonio Esfandiari to The Grinder, I thought, ha yeah, that’s gonna be SUPER awesome. You could almost smell it stinking before they even filmed it.
But really, the stink was so strong you can’t really get a full whiff of this bad boy w/o watching it.
The premise alone should clue any poker players with an actual sense of taste that this thing has got to be a lemon straight from the Bad Movie hall of fame: Burt Reynolds plays an ex-gambler who quit when he got too over his head. He sees a ‘young gun’ playing ’solid’ but ‘not so great’ poker on TV and takes him under his wing, teaching him ‘how to tell if a player has a good hand or not,’ then the two of them go to Vegas and enter a WPT event, where Burt comes out of retirement and teacher meets student heads up at the final table.
Yeah, I’m serious.
Add to that the main character, played by no name Bret Harrison, ‘tries his luck’ applying his gambling theories to winning the heart of a practically stillborn Shannon Elizabeth, and you have some idea of absolutely worthless this movie is.
That is, unless you’re like me and you get kicks out of watching movies so bad you can’t help but laugh to avoid gagging on the one liners.
ACTUAL DIALOG FROM FILM:
“Oh my god. You beat Doyle Brunson in the world championship?”
“Ahh.. back in college.”
One of the funniest thing about this film is that whoever wrote it has such a ridiculous ideas of what makes a poker player ‘great.’ The plays made by the old legend, Burt, including calling all in bets with AK and hitting an ace on the river, then staring across the table at Antonio Esfandiari knowingly.
The scene where Burt is telling the kid which players in the casino have good hands based on their ‘tell’ (’Yeah, that guy touches his face every time his hand is good. I think he has AK.’ HE DOES!!!) is alone worth spurting orange juice through your nose at the idea that someone actually paid to produce this script.
Slow motion shots of Burt capping his cards, dudes staring one another down and flipping over aces, old timers talkin mess to the young gun about how he shouldn’t be old enough to play, scripted commentary by Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton for some of the absolute worst card playing you can imagine. Ugh.
If you feel like laughing AT not WITH a movie, you should look at this, but don’t spend your money.
The fact that known pros put their name on this piece of filth should brand them even bigger promo junkies than we knew previously. Even Chris Monkeymaker has a few lines in this bad little puppy.
Shame shame shame.
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3 opinions for Review of Poker Movie ‘Deal’
JK
Jul 7, 2008 at 5:14 am
Hahahaha.. Looks like a great comedy, what a joke.. Reminds of that movie about a pool shark starring Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. Same type of movie different game (Card Shark)..
This movie will be out on DVD before it hits the movie screens. Wont even make it as rental. Burt stay retired along with that hair piece..
Blake
Jul 7, 2008 at 2:47 pm
The Color of Money is the Cruise/Newman. A great film actually. This thing is more in the league of Cool Runnings 2.
Actually Cool Runnings 2 kicks the crap out of this one. If it makes it onto DVD I’ll be surprised.
Jereme
Jul 8, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Well Color of Money was a sequel directed by Martin Scorcese and it is quite good even for lame Tom Cruise.
I don’t know how much you have read about this movie Blake. It was actually shot years ago when the boom first hit and then went to development hell. It has been sitting on a shelf for years. Whatever monolithic hollywood corporation (it’s not the one I work for otherwise I would have seen this already) is trying to make up the money lost on cost. That is all. If they break even then it is a “successful” release.
Don’t expect much.
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