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It’s not a question of who will turn on each other so much as when in this trust-game thriller. Four friends who fancy themselves art thieves suddenly owe a million dollars to a powerful thug (Forest Whitaker). The solution they come up with is morbidly ingenious: one will die to save the others. But that’s never the sort of pact you can expect people to follow through on, and therein lies the suspense. While it isn’t Hitchcock (or even Tarantino), it isn’t half-bad and it m… More >>
Tags: amazon, art thieves, Dogs, dogs playing poker, forest whitaker, Four, four friends, game thriller, Playing, Poker, thug, trust game
Picked this up in local video store. Way cool. Love it. Good independent. Sorry to miss it in theaters.
Rating: 5 / 5
I knew going into this movie that Tim Curry dies (poor guy, he always dies), but this was a very gruesome death. Too bad becasue Felix was a cutie! The rest of the movie, in my opinion, is pretty cool. Yes, it’s confusing @ first, but a second watch clears a lot up. Of course everyone’s entitled to their own opinions.
Rating: 4 / 5
This loosely edited film is in no way about poker – even in the metaphor intended. Some of the scenes are visually striking and some are even interesting, but overall the plot, editing, and characterizations just do not hold together. This is in the straight-to-video category.
Rating: 2 / 5
Not since Huston made the Maltese Falcon has a director so sharply captured characters truly capable of both friendship and betrayal. While other films aim to take over the film noir mantle (Shallow Grave or The Usual Suspects) Paul Rachman’s debut film is the true heir to this genre. Adding to the mix – an incredible ensemble cast. One of the rare times a director’s vision can overcome the weakness of an inferior script. This would be an important addition to anyone’s library, and we can only expect better things down the line in Rachman’s future.
Rating: 5 / 5
The real title of this film should be “95 Minutes Wasting Time”. First, the meat of the film–who will kill whom–hinges on an incredibly stupid sequence in which two characters temporarily abandon, in a public space, an astoundingly valuable objet d’art in their possession, only to return to it and find it gone. Now THAT’S a surprise.
If that were not enough, there’s an entire sequence, later on, when the four remaining characters–one has already met his end–sit around in their respective apartments and wait, and it’s really not clear what they’re waiting for or why. There’s shots of them ingesting drugs, fretting, making phone calls, picking up the phone, ignoring the phone, etc., etc.
Add to that a revelation, at the end, that makes no sense and you have a chaotic disaster posing as an arty, hip, suspense film.
The “four dogs” are four friends who concoct a plan, along with a fifth person, to steal a priceless Degas statue from a rich guy’s mansion in Argentina, then deliver it in New York to a classy thug (Forrest Whitaker) and get paid 100 grand each. When the piece disappears, they’re faced with either extinction or payment to Ellington, the thug, of a million bucks.
The plan they come up with to make good on the million dollars involves taking out backdated life insurance policies, each worth that much, and then having one of them kill another one to collect the insurance. This itself is pretty preposterous; one of the four, an attractive woman, works at an insurance company and she manages to have her boss sign the policies, EVEN THOUGH BACKDATED, thanks to her seductive charms. Like, excuse me, give me a break, OK?
There never is any poker played. Four cards are drawn to determine who will kill and who will be killed. Therein lies the substance of this ridiculous waste of time.
Don’t bother.
Rating: 1 / 5