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Even Money (2006/I)

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19 comments in total

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28 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
A very good film, 16 March 2006

Author: mila4 from United States

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.

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27 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
Great film, unbelievable cast, 16 March 2006

Author: myundergroundcity from United States

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.

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11 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
"Even Money" busts out, 20 May 2007

Author: Jason Bailey from United States

"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.

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13 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
This Film Was Awful, 12 March 2006

Author: deanm85 from Houston, TX

*** This comment 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.

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18 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Mark Rydell should be ashamed of this garbage, 12 August 2007

Author: id247 from United Kingdom

Welcome to Even Money, a strictly, by-the-numbers, connect the dots, type of film that has very little to recommend it.

Everybody seems to be sleepwalking it, borrowing character elements from their previous films.

Tim Roth plays a vicious gangster. Oooh original. Danny De Vito a failed magician who dreams of the bigtime. Yawn. Kim Basinger a mother with gambling problems, whittling away the family savings. Done how many times before in TV movies? Oh and Forest Whitaker has to ask his basketball prodigy brother to throw games so he can cancel his debt with the loan sharks, wow that's novel.

And then we have Kelsey Grammar with a plastic nose and face to match, that distracted me so much from his character, every time he appeared I kept thinking what's Kelsey Grammar doing with the dodgy nose? I forgot who he was meant to be.

People are comparing this with Crash - why? Different director and very poor writer, and a plot that isn't anywhere near as intertwined as people think.

A very simple, unoriginal film, with NOTHING to commend it. Avoid.

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15 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
Superb Performance of Kim Besinger and the rest of the cast, 20 January 2007

Author: hugo8 from United States

Beautiful realistic story of an ugly gambling addiction. From my point of view, the actors did the extra needed to make this movie an Oscar nominee and another one should be given for the castings. Just couldn't be better. The movie has obviously two different parts. On the first one we get presented to the three main figures and their gambling habits, that put them in deep deep troubles almost grabbing them to grave. On the second part, it's the fight to survive. Some do, while other have to face the unavoidable... Last but definitely not least. Kim Besinger. One of few that years of acting do so great for her. Such sensitivity, charm, and precise performance. Breathless. She must have the Oscar for this one, no question about it. with lots of help from the others: Forest Whitaker, Tim Roth, Danny DeVito, Ray Liotta. Great movie.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Gambling, addiction and full frontal betrayal, 20 November 2007

Author: Herb Yellin (Herby11230) from United States

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.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Double or Nothing: Big Gamble on Fine Cast in Otherwise Craps Film, 21 May 2007

Author: george.schmidt (george.schmidt@hbo.com) from fairview, nj

*** This comment 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.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
"Crash" for the gambling set, 12 March 2008

Author: Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States

Despite its decidedly un-ambitious nature, "Even Money" is a modern film noir melodrama with more story lines and characters than Robert Altman's "Nashville." Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Ray Liotta, Kelsey Grammar, Forest Whitaker, Grant Sullivan, Jay Mohr, and Carla Gugino all play individuals whose only real connection is that they are in some way or another touched by the evils of gambling.

Robert Tannen's overstuffed screenplay wanders all over the map, forcing the actors to spend most of their time just trying to keep up with all the narrative permutations. The most ludicrous subplot features DeVito as a washed-up magician who contemplates a professional comeback by teaming up with the best-selling author and compulsive gambler played by Basinger. Individually, any of the various plot strands might have made for an interesting movie, but taken together, they just keep getting in each others' way.

Veteran filmmaker Mark Rydell has not only helmed the piece but appears in a crucial cameo role late in the film. Sad to say, he doesn't make much of an impact in either capacity.

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We Are Responsible for Our Actions, 30 June 2008

Author: skybar20-1 from United States

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.

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