Rischio a due

Two for the Money is a decent, diverting picture. The material at times seems a little beneath these fine actors, but the film ends up hitting enough of the right notes to make it worth seeing.

Matthew McConaughey would seem a little out of his league on the same screen with Al Pacino and Rene Russo. By the end of the film, you will most likely feel that he's more than held his own, however. McConaughey plays a former college football star who sees his chances of a professional career destroyed by a serious injury. He quickly finds himself picking college football games for a low-rent betting line. With all of his past experience as a player, he does quite well with it. Well enough to attract the attention of Al Pacino, who runs a more up-scale operation in New York. By the end of the first half hour, McConaughey is picking all kinds of football winners, and making Pacino a ton of money. As you would expect, this success does not last very long as various egos spiral out of control and the betting gods turn on our heroes as they eventually do to all of us. The film is more of a character study about the minds of gamblers and lost identity than it is about the workings of an actual betting organization. Overall, it works on a couple different levels.

Pacino is fine, but not as out of control as you might hope. His character has a bad heart, so any typical Pacino tantrums are not really in order for him. He brings as much dignity as one could to the role of an addicted gambler, though. Rene Russo is terrific as his long-suffering wife and a former junkie. Pacino at some points seems to be trying to lose her to McConaughey. He being one of those terribly afflicted gamblers who only feels alive when he's just lost everything he wagered. The supporting cast is pretty good, too. Jeremy Piven is always appreciated, and so is the appearance by Armand Assante.

The best scene in the film takes place at a betting support group meeting that Pacino and his new protégé walk in on. Pacino, being a hopeless gambler himself shows empathy toward these degenerates, then has the nerve to pass out his business card to them!!! The logic I guess being that if you people have to lose, you might as well do it through a fellow degenerate gambler.

The biggest flaw I noticed was too many shots of McConaughey without his shirt on. Yes, the guy has great abs, but we don't need to see so much of them!! Overall this is a good film with some interesting things to say about people who bet. Notice how in the end, the "experts" are really just like the guys they take calls from. During the big games, we're all just sitting there with a beer in our hand, hanging by every first down or dropped ball.

7 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Al Pacino carries this film all by himself.

I can't think of a way that this could have been made without Pacino. Sure, Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo gave convincing performances, but Pacino makes you feel sorry for the miserable, empty shell of a man he is.

The plot was amazingly intricate and well carried, but (once again) without Pacino it would not have been delivered nearly as well. I think that they should have found a way to include a small explanation as to how sports betting works, so the fans who came in just to see Pacino would be able to understand how it works. Also, at times the movie just dragged on and on and on...

I still think that Al Pacino is that movie. Pacino really extends himself the way he always does to keep the movie alive and moving. His character was one of the most miserable men I have ever seen, and while i hated him, I still identified a small part of myself with him, and that is the sign of a truly great actor.

7/10

Mathew McConaughey is Brandon Lane, a former football star recruited by Walter Abraham (Al Pacino), the head of a sports consulting firm to help them set the line for their sports betting business. Lane's ability to predict the outcome of games quickly turns him into a golden boy, but it soon becomes apparent that he's bitten off more than he can chew when his abilities start to falter.

Two for the Money is a forgettable, generic thriller that doesn't really offer anything new. The film does have some entertaining moments and the first half of the movie is actually pretty exciting to watch. But, the second half is really slow and very tedious. It just drags on and on and for no reason either. It could have been a nice 90 minute movie but the story is stretched out into a two hour film. Luckily, Al Pacino is in the movie and he keeps the film exciting. He gives a good, over the top performance and he pretty much raises the film up to mediocrity. Personally, sports betting isn't that interesting to me but Al Pacino makes it interesting. He can turn a bad script into an okay movie which is what he does with the film. Let's be honest, the script is not very good and the direction is weak. It's so obvious where things are going which is not surprising because this is the same guy that made Taking Lives.

Al Pacino is playing mentor to Matthew McConaughey and their chemistry together isn't very strong. McConaughey is a pretty weak actor and he can't keep up with Pacino. The lead role should have gone to someone else. Rene Russo is okay as Pacino's wife. She gives a decent performance but she was a little too bland to truly stand out. Another thing about the film that people may not like is that every character is unlikable. It's hard to care for these characters because they are either pretty mean or bland. It didn't really bother me because I watched the film to be entertained and I did get some entertainment value from the movie. In the end, if you like Al Pacino then you should give the film a shot, if you don't then just skip it. Rating 6/10

Al Pacino continues his run of starring alongside a younger rising star. In Two for the Money he plays Walter Abrams, domineering, highly strung sports book adviser and former gambling addict with a dodgy heart.

Matthew McConaughey plays Brandon Lang, a former American Footballer whose out of the game permanently due to a knee injury but has an instinctive ability to call the game and game-plays.

Abrams takes Lang under his wing as his protégé, grooming him, shaping him, changing his clothes, style and even his name as Lang picks winners and attracts big time gamblers who bet more on more each week.

The film itself is standard text of a sports drama film with first you see the coaching of the young star, then his swift rise to the top and then the catalyst that leads to a decline before the film heads for a finish.

In this case Abrams refuses to share the wealth with Lang who is now attracting high rollers and Lang hits self destruct and starts to pick losers affecting the company and his clients who are losing big time. Of course from very early on from Pacino's full on performance as larger than life Abrams, this is a person you can never keep up with and he is in fact warned early on by Abrams's wife played by Rene Russo.

Of course the biggest problem from the outset is that we see Pacino play these characters before and you see a trail already as where this film is going. Also we have to swallow just because a person has played the game, understands the game he can call the game. In that case, surely other footballers could do the same? Sports is based on many factors such as mistakes, slips, bad calls and incidents rather than pure skill from the other side, it what makes the game exciting and difficult to predict.

So what starts as mildly interesting is as predictable as a tame roller coaster ride. Nothing too exciting but both leads have charm enough to keep you watching.

Matthew McConaughey is Brandon Lang, a former college football star who devastated his knee and was never able to play professionally. Six years later he's recording "sports predictions" for a 1-900 number in Las Vegas and living with his mom and younger brother, still dreaming of playing professional football one day. He never hears from the Cowboys, but he does get a call from Walter Abrams (the Godfather himself, Al Pacino), an entrepreneur who runs his own sports betting business, inviting him to move to New York and work for him.

Though Brandon Lang is the hero of the story, Walter Abrams is the beating heart of Two For The Money. He's a recovered gambling addict who runs his own empire of "sports betting advisers." No other film has ever explored the psyche of the gambling addict so precisely and intimately. Abrams describes what it feels like to win, but even more fascinatingly, he discusses the addict's subconscious desire to loose it all. Gambling addicts don't bury themselves in debt because they're sure they can win. They do it because they need to loose everything to feel alive.

Two For The Money is better than I expected. The characters are rich and complex and the story is never dull. Hell, this movie is worth seeing for the topless McConaughey shots alone.