HellBoy13

What's the concept behind the painting "Four Dogs Playing Poker"? Poker is a game of luck, but winning involves bluffing, lying, and aggressiveness. Dogs think they can handle these human traits, but they're just dogs. Predictable. Emotional. Easy tells.

This movie is about four childhood friends who are all in danger of dying.

To save themselves, they concoct a scheme to sacrifice one of them for the sake of the others. But they want to keep things anonymous to alleviate guilt, and that's where they stop trusting each other. Like four dogs playing poker, trying to figure out the other dogs' motives, not knowing who to trust...

The details sometimes fall by the wayside in order to set up this very interesting idea, but I found the story itself to be gripping. I had to watch the whole thing to see what happened.

Can you trust YOUR childhood friends if all your lives were on the line?

This is one of those movies where you find yourself constantly laughing not at any jokes but at the characters portrayed. After a while I realized I hadn't stopped laughing, and wondered if I should feel guilty for laughing at someone.

I realized that there was nothing wrong with laughing at the characters, because they were likable losers all in their own ways. The fact that Napoleon is "special" is not a reason to feel shame at laughing at him only because he never gives up on his life.

This is probably the only movie to successfully portray what it feels like to grow up a total nerd. Napoleon is a nerd that only only gives no thought to being a nerd, he never puts himself down for it. In fact, he is always blaming his weird family for others thinking that he is strange, not giving any thought at all to the possibility that he is strange himself. Because he views himself as normal where we do not, we can understand his desires.

Or maybe it's just because I grew up a nerd myself, and know what he's going through... ;)

There are many moments when life craps on Napoleon. Things just don't go his way. Others are mean to him. People don't understand. But he always keeps going without dwelling on his failures. Rather than be sad, he tries harder. He tells "exaggerations" to hide his disappointments, which would be enough to make any other (like his friend Pedro) just stay home from school in total depression.

This movie doesn't tell outrageous jokes, and yet it had me laughing all through the movie. All it did was draw real people not the way they're seen, but the way they're remembered.

I found it especially strong the way Napoleon showed his embarrassment and despair, by putting his head down and running away. Napoleon and Pedro don't change their facial expressions much at all, but you can tell what they're thinking.

I went into this movie thinking I'd see some weird guy doing really funny things. Instead I found out it was about a weird and funny (not intentionally) guy who just tried to act normal.

Also, the movie takes place post-70's in the early pre-Madonna 80's. I saw it in a theatre full of teens who didn't remember the references, but the soundtrack if full of comfortable 80's tunes that brought fond memories of listening to music in high school (if not fond memories of high school itself!). This is DEFINITELY a funny movie.

One note though, to those who want to watch this movie... Watch the credits completely, and I mean completely! After the music credits and the MPAA tags the credits actually end. And THEN, we are treated to an epilogue of when the characters are together again 2 months after the movie ends. You don't want to miss that.