Tilt

Network: ESPN; Genre: Drama, Crime; Content Rating: TV-14 (language, strong sexual content, brutal violence); Available: DVD; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)

Following in the footsteps of their first drama series, the controversial "Playmakers", ESPN's "Tilt" takes an unflattering look at the world of high stakes Las Vegas poker. "Playmakers" was an admirable failure, riddle with as many accomplishments as clichés. "Tilt" takes advantage of the national surge in interest for Texas Hold'Em, then turns around and bites the hand that fed it that opportunity. How dare the public not have recognized a game that has been around since the old west until now. There was some cynical fun in "Playmakers" take on football, but "Tilt" is an angry, bitter, relentlessly soul-sucking experience that is so single-minded in its attempt to demonize Vegas that the city could consider a defamation suit.

When family man and cop Lee (Chris Bauer, "The Wire") sits down at the high stakes table he gets cleaned out by Don "The Matador" Everest. It turns out that Don is not only a legend in the poker world, but a strong arm of the casino sent to make sure that the house wins at all costs. If Lee wasn't enough of a pit bull bent on bringing down Everest, three pro poker players (Eddie Cibrian, Kristin Lehman, and Todd Williams), who were also at one time ruined by The Matador, team up to bring him down during the national poker championships.

The poker action is as exciting as poker action gets. But creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien don't trust that poker will hold the narrative (a more talented team could have made it work), so they fill the stories with mobster, FBI agents, scam artists and a little murder mystery. Their Vegas is a full-on sadistic nightmare of a city, more "The Sopranos" than "Las Vegas", that sucks people in and eats them alive like a big neon monster. If the casino owners aren't crooked enough, the cops and judges are. Every few minutes somebody is being brutally beaten, casually murdered or tortured all set to trashing rock music. Nothing wrong with being loud, except when it is used as a transparent attempt to cover up a thread-bare nonsensical story.

None of the characters are the slightest bit likable. Everybody growls and snarls either out of revenge or detachment or sheer black-and-white evil for the sake of evil. B-movie staple Michael "pardon me while I never clear my throat" Madsen is the worst as Everest. This unconvincing tough guy has 2 purposes: threatening in a gruff voice and beating while yelling in a gruff voice.

The show is filled with monologues relating poker to life while saying nothing at all. On paper, on HBO or FX, this might not be a recipe for disaster, but Koppelman and Levien have a Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay sense of subtlety and ESPN doesn't have the experience or sense of quality control to rein them in. Under their eye a simple poker revenge drama becomes a loud, tacky, empty-headed, testosterone-fueled piece of punishment. "Tilt" is cheesy, B-movie stuff – and not the fun kind either.

* / 4

I haven't been real impressed with many of ESPN's ventures into original movies or programming. I saw a couple of episodes of "Playmakers" but it didn't keep me coming back. "3" wasn't bad...neither was "The Junction Boys" but I absolutely hated "Hustle" and the "Season on the Brink". That said, I watched "Tilt" with guarded optimism.

What I came away with after the first episode is the interest to at least see the second. The character development seems very good and, already, you want to see the "Matador" (Michael Madsen's character) fall and fall hard.

Lots of casino action, suspense, even a bit of flesh appear to be the ingredients here...and my wife probably said it best when she said, "You definitely won't see this on Lifetime"...

I would be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed with the TV series, "Tilt". I thought Rounders was a brilliant movie, and expected the TV show to be at least close to as good as the movie. My impression after watching the first few episodes was that a lot of the acting was bad (except for Madsen, of course), the writing was cheesy, and there wasn't that much actual poker playing involved. Tha being said, however, I watched the whole series without missing an episode. Despite its flaws, the show is interesting, and makes sure that you want to watch the next episode to see what happens. If you haven't seen it yet, don't expect "Rounders: The Series", but expect a show that is fun to watch, and will have you quote lines from it with your friends.

What can you say about this show? Nothing good, except that the levels of terrible this show achieves are so complete it is impossible to look away. Its a train wreck of bad lighting, stilted dialog and ridiculous plot. The narration from our main character comes off as completely lame. When we are not being treated to the inner monologue of, some other character is spouting off "quality" lines such as "You play cards; you're not a card-player." The non-stop barrage of poker jargon, perhaps with some demented eye towards establishing "street cred" with the poker world is so bad it borders on self-parody.

This show is mind-bogglingly bad. But, it is one of those monumental failures that you just can't stop watching. You will sit there, in a dazed stupor, wondering if there were any way the show could possibly be worse, but everything you come up with will invariably make the show better.

The producers of "Tilt" have helpfully placed a warning at the beginning of each airing, presumably to prevent young people from taking up poker. I can think of no better way to ensure that a child will never want to play poker than by having them watch this show.

After 2 episodes, I have to say I'm already a fan of this show.

A couple of haters here, who probably don't know anything about poker and were too slow to understand what was going on, are talking badly about the show.

Don't listen to them. This show has a very nice cast, is well written, and it has all the elements you'd want from an action series. Michael Madsen kicks ass as The Matador - but right away, the intrigue of seeing him fall to Eddie, Miami and Clark is too much, and you just wanna see how it will all develop.

Add to this a lot of danger surrounding a cop who is after the Matador himself, trying to avenge his late brother, who was killed by the Matador, and you got a big hit! I never watched Playmakers. I heard it was good, but it turned out to be a good thing I didn't watch since ESPN's affiliation with the NFL forced that show to get cancelled.

That won't happen to Tilt - this show will be a success!