Mississippi Grind

Two powerful performances from Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds carry this gritty gambling flick. Mendelsohn is pitch perfect as Gerry, a lying and conniving compulsive gambler. Reynolds is also excellent as Curtis, a free-wheeling and gregarious guy, who meets and befriends Gerry at a poker room, in a Dubuque, Iowa casino.

They decide they will travel together down the Mississippi on a gambling odyssey, with the ultimate goal of playing in a high stakes poker game, in New Orleans. At times, the talented filmmaker duo of Ana Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, Sugar) capture the tone of the gambling experience perfectly, while towards the end of the movie it enters fantasyland to some degree, in my opinion. There's even illustrations of the very dark masochistic tendencies that can be shown by a gambler, which reminded me of the classic 1974 film "The Gambler".

All in all, although this movie may appeal to only a certain slice of viewers, I found it intriguing enough to maintain my interest throughout, and wonder how it would all turn out, led, as mentioned by two superior portrayals by Mendelsohn and Reynolds.

This is essentially a remake of the movie California Split (1974).

The only exception in the plot is they go to New Orleans instead of Reno.

I do love Ryan Reynolds though and it was entertaining to watch.

Huge gambling film fan here. Let it Ride is one of my all time favorite comedies and I loved both the James Caan and Mark Wahlberg Gambler films, Big Hand For the Little Lady, Hustler,The Sting, Color of Money, Hard Eight , Rounders, The Cincinatti Kid and 21 all films I found better than this.

I came to the film for Ben Mendelsohn whom I have been a huge fan of since seeing the great "Animal Kingdom". He does not disappoint. This also is perhaps the best work that I have seen Ryan Reynolds do.

It is a road trip film that some are comparing to Sideways, but the script just feels flat. It held my interest. It is worth seeing, but it really could have had a more compelling script. A lot of it may be that beyond the relationship between the two leads, none of the other characters really played out well or drew me in.

I will say one thing. The sound track is classic. One of the best ever; full of Delta Blues and a host of songs that were oldies, but new to my ears. The soundtrack was a pure 10. Worth the price of admission alone.

This is a film about two poker players who strike up a friendship and go on a road trip to win their fortune. The problem is that one of them doesn't know when to quit. This is one the best films I've seen about gambling and poker in a long time. The two lead actors , Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn are brilliant and they work really well together. Mendelsohn in particular is really convincing as man with a severe gambling problem. This doesn't glamorise gambling at all and it highlights all the pitfalls of not being able to stop gambling. Essentially this is a road movie that despite having many bumps is actually a really good journey to be on for the viewer.

Once again the IMDb user rating fails to reflect the true quality of a movie and I have to side with the critics. So be it because I was surprised how much I liked Mississippi grind. The acting from the two leads was exceptional, particularly Ben Mendelsohn. The writing is very natural and realistic as well. As usual, I would normally side with users, but every once in a while (such as with the guest) the critics know what they're doing and quite frankly the users couldn't be any more wrong, with a rating of 6.4/10 I would call this film criminally underrated, just so you know I don't say that often.

To steer haters away I will tell you this movie can be quite depressing at times, it's writing and acting is so raw that the emotion and situations really get to you. I don't know about you but any weird feelings this film gave me were on a positive note (quality wise anyways). I love different movies, on first glance I was thinking this was just another gambling movie, you know what I was wrong. This film does things not many other films have done, such as the feelings it gave to me.

I love and I mean LOVE different movies, and this film is quite different, full of lots of bits that are left un said and yet if the viewer is immersed properly they will feel it and it works and it really worked for me. Yes the characters in the movie have a gambling problem and it can be quite un comfortable to see what they do themselves and others but you know what not every movie is going to have happy go lucky optimistic heroes, so if you don't like movies with characters that aren't picture perfect steer clear.

I apologize for my rather vague review, I am coming right off of my initial viewing so keep that in mind but don't think of this as a review but more as a recommendation. I'm not saying this is the best movie ever but for those such as myself in search of something different I would highly recommend this film and I would put this up with some of the greatest gambling movies EVER. Initially I give this a 10/10 but as I said I'm fresh out of the viewing so I have to give this movie some time to absorb to give a more proper assessment, but no doubt Mississippi Grind is worth a viewing. Thanks for reading my recommendation and hopefully you'll enjoy this hidden gem.