Lady Vegas

Rebecca Hall does an excellent job as a naive bookie in Lay. The other actors, Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Vince Vaughn are great in their supporting roles, but.... This movie was poorly written: the jokes fall flat, the script doesn't develop enough so that the audience can care about the characters, the gambling is explained only enough so that gamblers can understand what the actors are doing and there is very little plot action that's not inside an office looking at TV screens with sports games on them. Stephen Frears, the director, has done some major work such as "the Queen," and "High Fidelity," and i would think he was brought in to save this, but it's shot so plainly, like a made for TV movie. I get the feeling that this was filmed in a couple weeks and everyone involved wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I give it 3 out of 10 for Rebecca Hall's efforts and the fact that she comes off as incredibly sexy, but other then that, it's totally forgettable.

Until a friend suggested going to see this movie, I hadn't even heard of it, and other than what I gathered from skimming the synopsis in the cinema-foyer listings-leaflet -it seemed to be some kind of comedy, and starred Bruce Willis as a gambler-, I wasn't sure what it was about.

And now, after sitting through all ninety-four incoherent, enervating minutes of it, I'm still not sure. One of my friends, who is usually uncritical and easily entertained, said he thought that "The Tree of Life" made more sense than this film.

Unlike Terrence Malick's "metaphysical masterpiece" however, there is no confusion here as to what the subject matter is (it's the life of professional gamblers), what is confusing is how that subject matter is presented, and how the narrative is (or isn't) constructed around it. For example, what was the intended tone of the movie, what was the film-maker trying to convey? Was it supposed to be amusing? entertaining? or moving? were we supposed to be excited, or to feel intellectually stimulated? Who knows. My main emotional reaction to the film was a kind of repulsion, because I felt like I was being exploited, like the film was insulting my intelligence and my basic humanity. Like I might expect to feel if I'd been suckered into spending an evening feeding coins to a slot machine.

The first 10 minutes were slightly amusing to be fair, but after that that it just descends into complete mind-numbing absurdity. You might think Vince Vaughn would offer some comic-relief but, for the brief appearances he makes, he's just going through the motions (though it's still the most convincing and consistent performance of the movie).

There was no tension, or intrigue, at all, for the first seventy minutes. I mean nothing seems to really matter to any of the characters, they behave so unrealistically, and incoherently. And when things finally seem to get real and there is some adversity for the characters to face, you just don't care because you can't feel sympathy for such pantomime puppets as these.

They could have gone more into the details, the mechanics, of the gambling operation, that might have been interesting, but they thought it would be better to pad the story out with completely vapid romantic-interest scenes.

Maybe, with the attraction of Willis, Zeta-Jones, Vaughn, (and Rebecca Hall's legs), it was thought that such things as humour, narrative direction, consistency and pacing, character development, etc., were unnecessary.

After seeing the movie, I learned that it was adapted from a book, that at least goes some way towards explaining why there were so many undeveloped, seemingly irrelevant details, obviously included for the sake of those that have read it. For example, Holly (Laura Pripon's character) keeps warning Beth that she is becoming "one of us", in the book there might be context for this but when you watch the film you're just like "what is this I don't even...."

But, even for those that have read the book, maybe more-so, this film will only bemuse and bewilder. While I'm informed the book was written in a 'picaresque' -and no doubt droll (not to mention self-deprecating) style-, on screen, without the benefit of a narrator, this translates into characters, like Beth, who starts off as some kind of cartoon-airhead-bimbo-stripper, sunbathing with baby-oil on her back, ending up as an extraordinarily articulate, mathematical genius, who goes on to become a writer... Rebecca Hall was a bad choice.

And another thing, I couldn't help feeling that this film was not-too-subtly trying to indoctrinate me. Maybe I'm just paranoid but, beyond just the obvious product placements (nice Mercedes being driven by Bruce Willis' Mr. Nice character), it's like they're glamorizing the lifestyle, and completely glossing over any moral issues, and Beth just follows the money from Las Vegas to New York to Curaçao -are we supposed to admire that, to forget about community, and meaningful relationships, just go where the money is and keep working and consuming?-.

Whatever, I've wasted enough time on this drivel already, please heed my warning and don't waste yours.

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is an ex private dancer, looking to make it big in Las Vegas. She meets Dink (Bruce Willis) a sports gambler who shows her the ways of betting. Dink gets very close with Beth, much to the ire of Dink's wife Tulip (Catharine Zeta-Jones)

I generally try to respect people's opinions these days. I'm a rather opinionated person myself, so I implore people to speak their minds. But, one thing I can't get my head around is the low rating for this movie, 4.7, huh? Granted, it's not gonna make head spin if you decide to see it, but I thought it had energy and lots of likability to it. Lay The Favorite benefits from a fantastic cast. Gambling is a very touchy subject among people. It's always a risk (No. I didn't use the word gamble, because that would have been a lame pun) when one gambles. Maybe people felt this movie glorified gambling in a way? I don't know. I could see that, but I thought the addition of romance was very much needed here. I would have gotten bored if it was all about gambling. The development of the characters is what made this movie. I thought Bruce Willis brought a fine comedic touch, and genuinely seemed to be interested in the material. His relationship with Rebecca Hall was funny and touching. Willis was quite good here. I cracked up at the mini meltdowns he had. Rebecca Hall is fantastic. Her energetic performance, and her perky style does wonders for this movie, and I had my eyes glued to the screen every moment she was on it. She's sexy, cute, funny, and downright irresistible. She was a main reason as to why I enjoyed this as much as I did. I also enjoyed her love story with Joshua Jackson. Zeta-Jones is OK as Dink's husband. She had a couple of sassy moments here and there. Vince Vaughn is a bit OTT as Rosy, but managed to not get on my nerves, which is a big compliment in his case. The ending seemed totally Hollywood, and contrived. For some reason, I had trouble buying it. It seemed to me like the message was "The risk of gambling is worth it, and if you take risks, you might wind up lucky" That's a minor carp, though.

Final Thoughts: I had a decent time with this film. It passes the time effortlessly, and you won't regret watching it. It's not something I'll ever see again, but I didn't mind it at all, and I think people are really unfair with it.

5.7/10

I'm generally a fan of comedies, and tend to prefer intelligent comedies to most dramas. Lay The Favorite wasn't funny, it wasn't entertaining and it felt so scattered that it was hard to follow any of the character's motivations. This felt like one of those movies where they just wanted to have a bunch of named stars so they could have fun on set. If the movie was allowed to be slightly slower or if they allowed the movie to be slightly longer it might have been able to gain footing but in it's current state by the time you've figured out why someone is doing something they're already four moves ahead of that. If you just want to see southern women depicted as ditsy sex objects and older men that wear Hawaiian shirts and gamble then this movie is for you.

The pull of this film for me was the cast; Bruce Willis, Joshua Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughan... and that it looked a funny premise. I didn't realise it was based on a true story - the story of Beth (Beth Raymer) who leaves small town America to make a life for herself in the big city, bright lights of Vegas.

I always enjoy stories where girls build themselves up from nothing, doing whatever it takes and I liked Beth's outlook on life well played by Rebecca Hall light-heartedly and convincingly. Her character was flighty and silly, and it is nice to see such a story where horrible things didn't happen to her (lucky!) Other than the language in this film (the worst of which is from the Welsh lips of Ms Zeta-Jones, almost unrecognisable as American, Tulip both in terms of look and character) it's pretty innocent, some topless sunbathing excepting. Bruce Willis wasn't so Bruce Willis as usual and I liked his wayward yet lovable character and he brought some much needed contour to otherwise quite flat performances. During the film I did wonder why everyone was so one-dimensional but as it's a true story, they were I suppose just going with the story that happened - some of the reactions people had were unexplained, as were Beth's seemingly easy transitions. The gorgeous and talented Joshua Jackson was under-utilised in this film as an actor but seeing as it was a character-based biopic there's not much that could be done about that. Vince Vaughan managed to be exactly who he usually is in films, and Laura Prepon as Holly had a good, small part character role which she did really well in.

The film is about gambling so I didn't understand all that went on but there were moments where it was quite tense, given what was being done was illegal, but the end was predictable but as it's a true story why shouldn't it be? You cared enough about the characters that you did want a happy ending and it's nice that Beth's good personality and sunny disposition wins out and all is well. As films go - biopic aside - it's not that great as it wasn't particularly challenging or deep, and the main character's antics were naïve and rather silly, so you find her a little annoying, but she was plucky and from the point of view of the real person she did very well for herself. It is, what it is. It entertained for an hour or so but I'm glad I didn't see it at the cinema as I would have been disappointed as it wasn't as funny as I expected. It's definitely an average, middle of the road standard film on all counts; screenplay, direction and performances but it's worth watching.