Four Dogs Playing Poker

There is one thing I dislike the most about certain movies, and this is when they pretend to be smart, well-made, and to be something, while they indeed lack details, arguments, script, and the acting capacity of its stars is not even considered. This is all about "Four Dogs Playing Poker". At a certain moment you feel that you left your brain somewhere else, because you can't believe what you are seeing. One can be mislead, though. You see big names, i.e., Tim Curry, Forrest Whitaker, playing small roles, and you immediately presume that you are in front of a piece-of-art that has convinced those big names to work almost for free just to help a young and gifted director. I don't want to judge their intentions, but I can tell that the only good thing about "Four Dogs Playing Poker" is that keep you all the time filling up all the details that are missing. I don't want to tell you what details are missing, I prefer that you rent the movie, see it when you have nothing to do, and challenge your brain to find out all those things that make no sense at all. If the movie wanted to play a little bit serious, it should have joked about the stupid idea of its main characters, and show how unproductive it was at the end. That would have at least save the day. In a scale of 1 to 10, let not be so hard on them, let's give a 3+.

A stylish thriller, with one major let-down: the whole premise is just so unbelievable that you really need to be able to suspend your disbelief for this one.

Four young art thieves, and their mentor (a surprisingly good, but underused Tim Curry), steal a priceless statue from an Argentinian millionaire, (a surprisingly good, but underused ex-James Bond, George Lazenby!) and ship it back to the States on a cargo ship. Recipient of the said statue hears that it isn't on the ship, and promises to kill all five if it isn't delivered - or make them pay $1 million. So, what would you do? Wait and see if it turns up, do a runner and leave the country? Or build up some elaborate insurance scam whereby one of you has to kill another one, so the rest of the gang can claim $1 million insurance? They opt for the latter, and all reality goes out of the window. It's a shame, because the four 'friends' are good together, and there are some genuine thrilling moments. Its pretensions to film noir are justified an only a few occasions, and the 'twist' ending doesn't really make up for the plotholes.

That said, certainly worth a look.

The idea of this movie is brilliant and it could have led the script towards a totally different perspective of the action. Although some scenes are obviously forced, and higly unlikely, the movie captures you till the end. The dilema, the game to decide the killer and the victim, could have provided much more psychological moments than it actually does, and that would have made the movie better. Unfortunately, after the middle of the film, it becomes a simple action movie with simple and way too predictable events. All in all, a good idea, a nice watch, but it's a pity - it could have been great. Vote: 5 out of 10.

Previous comments seem to be either one of extreme hate or pleasure. I find the extremes fascinating. I think this movie was average. Not great, but worthwhile watching. One that you need to watch twice to get the point. I found no part of it boring. The use of poker in the title has to do with the bluffing, faking, lying and not showing all of ones cards.

On the whole it is much better in terms of the story than most action films.

If plots making sense was a requirement for a good movie, then I guess there are very very few movies worth watching. The plot for example of Master and Commander, a movie I really enjoyed, was based on an absurd disregard for the navel power situation in 1805 wherein Britian had obtained complete mastery over the oceans (e.g., Battle of the Nile, 1803). So why should we attack Four Dogs for a gimmicky premise. Name a movie that doesn't involve some gimmick or suspension of disbelief to get the ball rolling.

To me the only unexplained part is why the bad guy wants a million from them, but that might also be part of the double crossing.

In Four Dogs, the fact that so called friends agree so easily to kill one another was one of the points -- their friendship wasn't worth a half million. It must also be kept in mind that they were being manipulating into agreeing with the idea and it was done so subtly that it is not until you see the movie for the second time that you can see the manipulations that are going one. There's actually a lot of subtly in the movie. But also notice how several members of the group were all prepared to double cross the rest. The main double crosser however did give at least one of them a chance.

It is very doubtful that the insurance scam idea would work, but the main characters didn't clue into the main problem with it -- back dating the payments on the policies -- thats a whole lotta fraud. But its a mute point, there is never any mention at the end of the film about cashing the policies in! Suggesting that the whole insurance scam was part of the doublecrossing plots and a bluff. It isn't important how fast the money will be paid out, whats important is that they players in this high stakes game, think that cashing in the policy on one of them, will save the rest.

The fact that the ships crew had a Mexican accent (I'm assuming that the Argentinian commentator meant accent, not language, cause the language is the same), isn't that surprising since the ship has an English name and is headed toward Los Angeles (home of a very large Mexican population) -- so its more likely to have a Mexican speaking crew than an Argentinian crew.

The whys or practicalities of the movies aren't really the main issues. The most interesting part of the movie is the crisis, the cut throat solution they come up with, how they are manipulated into the solution, and how the solution unravels (as planned).

There a very interesting thing going on when one of the characters asks another if he could really kill her.

With such a great title and the premise while a little far-fetched being also brilliant, Four Dogs Playing could have been a very good film. Instead for me it had its fair share of good things but fell short, being a moderately entertaining film at most.

Four Dogs Playing Poker is stylishly made, looking every bit the brooding thriller type of film, complete with atmospheric and not too dim lighting and settings that suit the film well. It's competently directed, the music does have intensity and the story while less than perfect is a lot of time diverting and not too dull. Another thing Four Dogs Playing Poker does well is that it has a fun cast, with the high points being Tim Curry, who's excellent(if very underused) in a more serious role than usual, and an intimidating Forrest Whittaker. Olivia Williams brings a variety of emotions to her role and Balthazar Getty is very charismatic in his.

Sadly, Four Dogs Playing Poker does come up short in other areas. The script is quite weak, being rather underdeveloped and sometimes confused, leaving more questions than answers with some "comedy" parts instead feeling flat and misplaced. Despite the cast giving their all the film does a not particularly good job making their characters interesting, with almost all of them being one-dimensional and clichéd and the most experienced cast members(i.e. Curry) not being in long enough). Four Dogs Playing Poker is hurt by the predictability of the second half, weakening the fun and suspense that the film started off with, which also becomes increasingly preposterous, in want of more explanation and lacking in momentum. By the time the twist came I found myself not caring very much for who the perpetrator was.

Overall, great title and premise but doesn't quite deliver as much as it could have done. Disappointing, but hardly a time-waster. 5/10 Bethany Cox