Dogs: The Rise and Fall of an All-Girl Bookie Joint

Very amusing in it's depiction of life for a group of twenty something young women roommates in Manhattan who can't find jobs any of them can stand, can't manage their romantic relationships and all suffer from crushing debt. Their eventual shift to "a life of crime" - well, being bookies anyway, is fresh and interesting. To criticize that the bookie aspect of the film is not "realistic", is to miss the point entirely. This film hits the mark on the struggle to live and thrive in Manhattan under difficult circumstances. Production values are low as I understand this was an indie feature.

The fact that this film may not be an accurate portrayal of the "bookie business" really isn't the point of this movie. Okay, so there are some goofs, but the real emphasis of this movie, which may have been overlooked by some, is that it's the story of a twenty-something girl who had just lost her mother and did what she could to raise enough money to bury her, and in the meantime she and her roommates started a bookie joint in their kitchen. She falls in love, and throughout the movie she has daydreams of her mother, wondering what her mother would say to what she is doing with her life, etc.... basically a real "coming to terms with reality" movie about growing up and really being "on your own."

I really liked this movie. Its characters each had their own quirky personality, especially their new roommate's boyfriend, who had a strange obsession with Marlon Brando. Though the theme of the movie is a little depressing, almost every scene had me smiling because of the light humor. It is very well written, well directed, and colorful. Perhaps it could be called a "chick flick," but I'd recommend it to anyone, really.

When is somebody going to make a realistic film about bookies? Not these people, that's for sure. There are so many "goofs" in this film it's hard to know where to start. My favorite is when one of the girls wakes up, dials the phone and gets last night's basketball scores from a live person. Where does this service exist? I'd sure like to know about it.

The only film I've ever seen that accurately represents gambling is "The Gambler," with James Caan; but that's only from the gambler's perspective. The bookies in that film are totally unrealistic, too.

Filmmakers constantly misrepresent bookies -- a typical misrepresentation is from the film "Honeymoon in Vegas," when a bookie is walking across a city street and someone asks him, "Hey Blackie (or some such typical Hollywood bookie name), what do you got on Georgetown?" "Three," the bookie replies (how would he know, with lines changing by the second?). "Hey, it's only two downtown," the bettor says. "Then make the bet downtown!"

This film places unbelievable characters in unrealistic situations. A sure hit on network prime time TV, but not for a motion picture. Probably the worst film of 1996.