Reviews & Ratings for
Even Money More at IMDbPro »

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

35 out of 58 people found the following review useful:

A very good film

Author: mila4 from United States
16 March 2006

Wow. I must disagree with the guy who hated the movie. Don't know what movie he was watching, but I was at the screening Sunday night and the film was well received and rightly so.

It's an intelligent, character driven movie. Great performances. They don't make many films like this anymore. I actually had issues with CRASH (the cartoonish depiction of race issues of LA, the coincidences). EVEN MONEY is a better film.

One issue: I had no idea in which city the movie took place.

Other than that, I highly recommend this film for those of you who miss the great character driven films of the 70's.

35 out of 58 people found the following review useful:

Great film, unbelievable cast

Author: myundergroundcity from United States
16 March 2006

This new film has a superb cast, with potential award winning performances from Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger and -- particularly -- Forest Whitaker.

Tense, tight script that keeps you guessing 'til the very end. A new writer, and I'd love to see other stuff he's written.

If you're looking for a typical light, frothy Hollywood film with a happy ending, look elsewhere: 'Even Money' gives you a strong dose of real life -- as several lives unwind because of addictive gambling.

The same producer took a chance on "Crash" -- this film, in my opinion, is definitely in the same league.

23 out of 35 people found the following review useful:

"Even Money" busts out

Author: Jason Bailey from United States
20 May 2007

"Even Money" is an ensemble drama that aims to be the Traffic or Syriana of gambling, but comes off closer to Crash—a trite amalgam of scenes we've seen many, many times before. The fact that you've heard so little about a film with such an impressive cast (Kim Basinger, Ray Liotta, Danny DeVito, Tim Roth, Kelsey Grammar, Nick Cannon, Jay Mohr, Carla Gugino, Forest Whitaker) should tell you something; indeed, the scuttlebutt on the ol' World Wide Internets is that the film was headed straight to DVD until Whitaker picked up the Oscar.

The cast is mostly good, but there's only so much that they can do with this material. Basinger and Liotta are especially hard up, stranded in a story thread that is older than the hills; poor Carla Gugino is stuck playing the same scene (by my count) three times straight, which is a criminal misuse of an actress as intelligent and sexy as she. Tim Roth has some nice moments as an especially snarky bad guy, though this viewer wondered if he would really show up at the college basketball game that provides the film's climax (with a resolution that can be clearly seen the moment the story turn is introduced). Kelsey Grammar (nearly unrecognizable) appears, at the film's beginning, to be doing an interesting piece of character acting as a cop, but he then disappears for over an hour, which makes his character's big final scene somewhat less than compelling.

"Even Money" is a mess, an attempt to manufacture a prestige picture by throwing many talented actors at a script whose most complex insight appears to be "gambling is bad". We should expect as much from producer Bob Yari, who gave us the aforementioned "Crash" ("racism is bad"). Director Mark Rydell has helmed a couple of successful films ("On Golden Pond", "The Cowboys") and some interesting failures ("Intersection", "The Rose"), but when he pops up briefly as a powerful figure at the end of "Even Money", all I could think of was his similar acting role in Altman's "The Long Goodbye", and how much I'd rather be watching that movie than this one.

15 out of 22 people found the following review useful:

This Film Was Awful

Author: deanm85 from Houston, TX
12 March 2006

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I never write comments about movies but I have to on this one. This, unfortunately, was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I just got out of the theater and I feel a little bad that I'm writing this. It's here at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin and it seemed some other people liked it. The acting was atrocious and the plot was really weak. I guess I don't want to get banned so here's a minor SPOILER ALERT: It's a gambling movie but the casino chips I could buy for $.05 each at Walgreens. There was a point shaving story line that was laughable. Apparently no one who knows anything at all about gambling helped out on this film. Basinger's character pulls a complete 180 three different times in the film. It's completely unbelievable. This felt like a straight to DVD film.

8 out of 12 people found the following review useful:

Gambling, addiction and full frontal betrayal

Author: Herb Yellin (Herby11230) from United States
20 November 2007

The comparisons to "Babel" and "Fast Food Nation" are way off the mark. "Even Money" is a film noir with revenge at its center, in gambling win or lose there is a payday and in this movie all the debts are paid, and there is potential for two couples to emerge from their morass. This is a good film, directed by a pro, Mark Rydell, who has even has a cameo role in which some of the irony and mystery is explained.

This is a sleazy movie -- to paraphrase Michael Douglas in "Wall Street," sleaze is good, and tips its hat to Orson Welles in one of my favorite films, "Touch of Evil." Yes, it is about addiction and much of the extraordinary cast (Kim Basinger, Kelsey Grammar, Danny Devito, Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotto and Tim Roth among them) play it carefully, straddling the line, without becoming camp or going over the top. High marks to the director for this.

If you like your cynicism straight and don't turn your head at a little cinematic violence this is a movie you will enjoy. Its well worth taking a flier on.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:

We Are Responsible for Our Actions

Author: skybar20-1 from United States
30 June 2008

I'm always fascinated by any film that can provoke an array of feelings towards it as this films appears to have done. I am in the "liked it very much" camp. Perhaps if one avoids seeing it as a slice of life screenplay, it can be appreciated much better. I saw it as an exercise in watching people proceed to ruin their lives....we're generally responsible for what choices we make. Kelsey Grammar was very good in his role, but I could have done without the false nose, etc. Tim Roth is one of those actors who is never boring regardless of how good or poor the particular film may be. While I can appreciate why some people hate this film, I just approached it from a different angle, took it for what it was and didn't look at my watch once during its run.

5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:

What are you willing to lay on the line?

Author: lastliberal from United States
5 August 2008

You can sit in a University and listen to dry lectures from Psychology profs, or you can watch a great movie like this and understand human nature and desire more than you ever imagined.

Yes, we all want more, but most are not willing to make the commitment necessary to get it, and some cannot live with the consequences of failure. Who was it that said, "If you put all you own on one roll of the dice, and lose, and start over, you will be a man." That's why so many people stay married when they shouldn't - they can't face starting over.

This film had more life lessons that you can imagine and some damn fine actors to teach and entertain us.

Kim Basinger was magnificent as a struggling writer who falls into a gambling addiction. She really gets pathetic as she falls deeper in debt. Danny DeVito was also great as someone who life passed by and was now picking up crumbs. When faced with total loss, he took the coward's way out. Forest Whitaker gave an excellent performance as someone living on his brother's (Nick Cannon) ability. Tim Roth as Victor, the criminal, was dead on. I also enjoyed Ray Liotta and Carla Gugino, and thought Carson Brown was amazing.

Funniest Line: "Teenagers...they are God's way of punishing us for having sex."

6 out of 9 people found the following review useful:

Double or Nothing: Big Gamble on Fine Cast in Otherwise Craps Film

Author: george.schmidt (gpschmidt67@gmail.com) from fairview, nj
21 May 2007

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

EVEN MONEY (2007) ** Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Tim Roth, Jay Mohr, Kelsey Grammar, Nick Cannon, Carla Gugino, Grant Sullivan,Carson Brown, Cassandra Hepburn (Dir: Mark Rydell)

Double or Nothing: Big Gamble on Fine Cast in Otherwise Craps Film

Gambling is an addiction that, like drug abuse or alcoholism, affects not only the one perpetuating the disease but also those around them including their loved ones. In this melodramatic attempt at showing the ills of the so-called gambling lifestyle (an oxymoron come to think of it) then the odds are against the viewer in this hodgepodge of dramatic vignettes.

Intertwined throughout this CRASH-like narrative are Carol Carver (Basinger, acting up a storm here), a novelist struggling to find her second novel but fritters her afternoons away in a local casino overwhelmed with guilt at having her family's life savings nearly completely lost at her bad luck; Walter (De Vito, one of the film's producers to boot), a down-and-out slight-of-hand magician who thinks he can get back in the lime-light and takes Carol under his wing in helping her get back her lost monies ; Clyde Snow (Whitaker, equally giving a run for his money acting up to a full-bodied sweat, a hard-working plumber who wagers too high on his younger brother Godfrey (Cannon), a skilled high school basketball player with dreams of the NBA in his brilliant future; Augie and Murph (Mohr and Sullivan, respectively), a pair of small-time bookies who take their anger out on the welchers with quick brutal beatings; and Victor (Roth hamming it up to the hilt) as an oily big-time bookie who may be guilty in a series of murders of his competition.

Also on hand are Liotta as Basinger's English lit teaching husband whose patience is growing weary thinking his wife is having an affair and their tween daughter Claudia (Brown) rebelling with her budding sexuality; Veronica (Gugino), a doctor and girlfriend to Murph who isn't aware (at first) of her beloved's violent tendencies; and Detective Brunner (Grammer in some unwisely recommended facial make-up prostheses), investigating the string of murders and the lure of a mysterious gangster/red herring named Ivan.

The scattershot screenplay by newcomer Robert Tannen is all over the place and while it gets the duh point of gambling is bad for you the flat direction by vet Rydell (ON GOLDEN POND) leaves his actors grasping for air like fish out of water. The odds for the viewer to be entertained are decidedly craps.

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:

Better than what I thought it would be...

Author: moviedude1 from Minneapolis, MN, USA
16 December 2008

Following the lives of three individuals centered around an addiction from which they find no escape. The only thing it gets them is DEEPER! Basinger plays a housewife who hides her gambling addiction from her family, even if it means they think she's having an affair. Whitaker plays the older brother of a college basketball student on the verge of making it big time, only to run the risk of being brought down for shaving points. DeVito is a small time magician with a bit of a gambling problem, himself, while Grammar plays a cop trying to find the killer of a bookie and finds himself on the trail of another bookie who's trying to take over the dead man's action.

This film is good! Really! I don't know what else to say about it. The characterizations were right on and the message is there: what a world you live in that will feed you what your disease tells you that you need! It affects all areas of your life: your sanity, your financial situations, your loved ones, your job, and, eventually, if you let it, your life. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bottom-feeders out there who's main reason for living is to give you that "sugar," only to take it away when the time is right (so to speak).

I'm not sure if the director and/or the writer were speaking from personal experience, but, speaking as one with his own addiction demons, he/they weren't very far off the mark! 7 out of 10 stars!

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:

Don' t risk what you can't afford to lose.

Author: Michael O'Keefe from Muskogee OK
18 September 2007

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Cleverly written with a splash of suspense. Don't even forget about a dark side. People always want more than they have; more money, more time, more love...more life. A group of individual's lives are connected through an addiction to gambling. Kim Basinger is a perplexed writer that has lost almost all of her family's savings. Her husband(Ray Liotta)misses her and her daughter(Carson Brown)no longer has a college fund. Forest Whitaker needs his NBA bound nephew Nick Cannon to shave points in basketball games to win money. Danny DeVito is a washed-up magician needing money to restart a career. Jay Mohr is a volatile bookie, who is ruthless in collecting his money. Kelsey Grammar is a detective investigating the killing of two bookies. Atmosphere is moody and the pace pulsing. Also in the cast: Tim Roth, Carla Gugino and Grant Sullivan.

Page 1 of 3:

[1] [2] [3]

Add another review

Related Links