Shooting Gallery

Freddie prinz is Jericho, hot shot pool player. And playa he is. He joins Cue Ball's group (Rhames) to take the money the tourists were so ready to give them. He's supposed to hand over a percentage to Cue Ball every time. But he starts playing on his own. And doesn't hand it over. And an undercover bails him out. And wants something. If Jericho will set it up to give up Cue Ball, detective Mortenson ( Callum Rennie) will have his back. But the cop has his own weaknesses... who is scamming who in this match of matches? Written and directed by Keoni Waxman; had been making films for ten years by this time. This one is pretty good.

I didn't watch this movie expecting to find Oscar-caliber performances. But it did have a story, and it kept me interested right to the very end. The premise started out simple. Pool hustlers. And then suddenly it meat of the story starts to unravel, and I got to give props for an awesome climax. The pool playing was eye catching. And it's nice to finally see FPJ play subtle. It's a flawed film, but certainly not a terrible one. There were several pieces of dialogue I could live without. I was also a bit surprised to find myself chuckling a few times - when you see it, you'll know what I mean. Ving though felt terribly miscast, but he didn't distract me, so I'll take the good over the bad.

My chief complaint is that there are no captions, so I'm only catching bits and pieces of the movie. The names are already killing me. Jezebel... Jericho... Is this pool or 'Children of the Corn'?

The acting as a whole was atrocious. Was there even a director on the set? The accents and dialogue are hilarious. All I hear is "sisal, sisal, sisal". I have never in my life heard anyone talk like this in any pool hall I've ever been in. The special features said the slang was 30% made up by the movie makers - try 90% and the rest they got wrong. Like what is all this "tribe" talk? Nice tattoos, by the way. So they get branded. With eight-balls, no less. Way to hustle there, sports. I expect to hear Ving Rhames offer to get the horses for his "mastuh" any minute now. Oh, Freddie... if you're lyin, you're dyin? That's tough. Especially with you lowering your voice like that. It's reminiscent of Rocky Balboa.

Then not only did they make up their own jargon, they butchered actual pool terminology. It's a good thing this movie never made it to theatres, or we'd have a bunch of clowns running around our pool halls rambling about dandelions and lemons.

Of course, the shots, the bridges, and the "sharking" these guys are doing are all horrible, but I expected no less. The rack twirl got me, though. You know what I'm talking about... That thing ball-bangers do. I also noticed when "Jericho" and "Cueball Carl" (*rolls eyes*) are playing, they rack the balls in numerical order. Nice. And love the glove, Carl.

Shooting Gallery was also an apt title. I think they shot more with guns than cues. I actually felt like I was watching a soft porn through some of those scenes.

Not all is lost, though. I walked away with a new playing strategy: When on the nine, hit it as hard as you can. And cuss. A lot.

This movie does what I never thought possible, which is suck more than 'Poolhall Junkies'.

Waxman's straight-to-video film about a smart street pool player who gets involved with the wrong hustlers. It has a good enough screenplay, interesting direction and overall a great atmosphere. The actors do well enough, especially Rhames and Daniel Newman, though Prinze Jr.'s tone and speaking was totally wack, his acting wasn't completely horrible as he managed to get some of the emotional scenes down without appearing completely lost in the film. Still, Prinze jr. was the weak part about this film, Roselyn Sanchez was decent in the female role, though films like this have been done, and done well, like 86's "The Color of Money" directed by martin Scorsese, but i actually didn't mind Waxman's film, it was entertaining, fresh and fun to watch.--- IMDb Rating: 5.4, my rating: 9/10

It's true that this is not some sort of award-winning movie it's also true that for entertainment value it's a great movie especially if you happen to be a pool player. Not as good as the Hustler but at least as good or better than The color of money accepting the fact that it doesn't have Paul Newman and unless you're a real Tom Cruise fan Paul Newman's the only star in the movie.MHO