Even Money

I worked in Hollywood when this script made the rounds. (I've now come to my senses and make my living in another field.)

I can tell you that it was a fantastic script. Highly ambitious.

The reason it is not as good a movie as the screenplay is due to the producer and the director.

It's a shame because it should have been a fantastic movie.

Trust me when I say that all the stars got attached because of the script. None of them got paid near what they usually make. (The producer is notoriously cheap.)

There are some wonderful moments which remain, but when I watched it, I just wanted to get back in the business and remake it as it should have been made the first time!

Pity.

A lot of things need to come together to make a great film.

"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.

There's quite a few fine films that explore the darker side to gambling and the soul crushing effects it has on people. The destruction of lives, relationships, families, jobs, etc. The best humanize these characters with their sickness at their best and their worst. Perhaps that's what 'Even Money' was trying for amongst other things on its mind.

Simply put, the movie has too many players involved and too much going on. In a bid to be grandiose and end in epic all-tied-together fashion - it ultimately feels heartless and forced. The principal players are as follows. Kim Basinger is an addicted gambler writer with a family. She links up with Danny DeVito who's an over the hill magician also addicted to gambling looking to get his glory back. Forest Whitaker uses his skilled athlete brother (Nick Cannon) to point shave his basketball games to keep the wolves (he's deeply indebted to) at bay.

If you like a lot of recognizable faces in the cast you certainly get it here. In secondary roles you have the likes of Ray Liotta, Tim Roth, Carla Gugino, Jay Mohr and Kelsey Grammer. It's also with these names unnecessary plot points and side stories occur. In the case of Liotta in particular, he gets to play the husband to Basinger as the truth comes out and their family gets torn apart.

'Even Money' isn't a horrible film. The acting is generally decent and it doesn't go all Hollywood giving upbeat, positive endings to all of the characters. However it also doesn't reach a satisfying place, only sporadically entertains and you'll have a hard time liking many of the faces involved.

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.

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.