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 During a hand of poker, every player is telling a story...
Matt (Jesse Pianelli) is a gambler with a taste for risk. Eager for revenge – and a large cash bonus – he challenges veteran poker player Trip (Carlton Masters) to a high-stakes game. But his confidence may be short-lived as double-crosses and misdirection surrounding this game begin to reveal themselves.
This movie jumps around a lot in the story. It starts with the poker game, then jumps back to four weeks previous to show the initial setup. The story continues to jump from the game into the story’s setup where the men find a dealer for the game, Matt tries to secure the cash he will need for the buy-in, and there is a hint of conflicting interests on the part of Trip’s girlfriend, Kim.
Though this type of format could be quite confusing, it was surprisingly easy to follow. The only differentiations used were small screen captions saying “4 weeks before,” “3 weeks before,” etc. It’s a simple effect, but a common one that an audience will recognize. The characters of Trip, Matt, and the dealer are introduced with black and white graphic title cards – sort of Snatch-esque or Clerks-esque. Although these three are important characters, Matt’s two backers – who are quite amusing and colorful – weren’t even introduced. That type of effect should be applied to all the characters to keep with consistency. The whole introductions don’t have to be done all together as Guy Ritchie did, especially considering how the film jumps around, but adding this effect when each character makes their first appearance would be a good addition.
The film starts with series of shots from the window of a car. These are notoriously difficult to do, but apart from one or two shots that were slightly washed out, the sequence looked good. With that said, there were a couple pan and tilt clips that shook far too much where a tripod really should have been used instead of handheld. In the poker scenes, which appeared to have been shot in a basement, they had the expected single overhead light. This made for some nice dramatic shadows, but there were a few instances – particularly toward the end of the film during a very intense confrontation – where Trip’s face was completely in shadow and very difficult to see on the close-ups. Even moving the table forward just a bit would be enough to give him enough top lighting, and could make for a very creepy shadow on his face as well.
When Matt goes to meet the two men who agree to loan him the money, one of them – Butchy - is quietly cleaning his gun, while the other – Zane - is drinking a cocktail and speaking loudly and flamboyantly – the subtle visual hints given by these two add a great element of comedy. In one instance, the more effeminate Zane makes some mention of something on his coffee table – which had not been shown. There is then a cut to show lines of cocaine on the table, followed by a cut of the character leaning down toward the table, then an ambiguous closeup of the table – with no coke or character. While not showing a character actually using narcotics can knock a rating down a bit, there is a better way to imply it. Firstly, the coke needs to be shown before there is mention of it so that the audience is not confused. It can be as simple as a few cutaways, such as one that’s already there of the second characters’ guns lying out. Then all one needs to see is the characters leaning out of frame, followed by the sound effect of him sniffing; the audience will certainly make the connection there.
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