Les maîtres du jeu

Gabriel Byrne, Thandie Newton, and Stuart Townsend star in "Shade," a 2003 film with an appearance by Sylvester Stallone and Jamie Foxx.

Byrne plays Miller, a grifter who partners with Tiffany (Newton) in various cons. They arrange to work with a third person, a card shark, Vernon (Townsend) and draft a gambler, Jennings (Foxx) to get into a high-stakes poker game with a buy-in of $25,000. They explain that it's rigged, and he's only to make a big bet when Vernon is the dealer.

Jennings gets carried away and loses over $80,000 when he ignores what they tell him. One problem. It wasn't his money. It belonged to a mobster.

I won't tell you the rest - that basically sets up the story. According to people on this site, if you know anything about poker, you won't enjoy this as much as others.

"Shade" is an entertaining movie with good performances, particularly by Gabriel Byrne. The script is clever -- it's not unlike anything we've seen before, but it is very well done.

Others in the cast include Patrick Bachau, Bo Hopkins, Melanie Griffith, Dina Merrill, and her husband, Ted Hartley, who produced this for their studio, RKO. Stallone, as a famous poker player, is excellent. He was a little distracting to watch because to me he looks so different from the last time I saw him.

Recommended -- it's fun and has a good cast.

If you are a fan a magic or card tricks, you should rent this movie. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit due to the interesting relationship they explore between cheating at cards and tricks employed by traditional magicians. I agree that on plot alone this is not the most exciting movie in the world. However, I especially found the special features on the DVD tremendously entertaining which gave an in-depth look at some of the astounding sleight of hand tricks done by world class magicians. Many of the card tricks are filmed upwards through a glass surface to show the audience how they are done. Anyone will be astounded at the dexterity and skill of the magicians who pull off cards switches invisibly, even after telegraphing their intentions to the audience to let them in on the trick.

I work at Blockbuster so it's fair to say I have seen my fair share of movies and to be honest in the last 3 years...nothing has really caught my eye and made me sit and enjoy watching the same movie over and over again.

One thing I notice to is we get a lot of 'sleepers' or straight to DVD titles and often those are the better of the movies. Shade was one of them, this movie had an excellent story, great acting and was just fun to watch, when I saw it I wanted to own it, although it cost me $30 Canadian it was worth it. Stallone, although not well liked or viewed as a good actor by public opinion, I beg to differ. Rock, Cop Land, Shade were all excellent movies, he was good in the remake of Get Carter as well. Stuart Townsend also is an up and coming actor. It's a shame a well made movie like this didn't go to theaters.

It is movies like Shade and Poolhall Junkies that I can sit down and enjoy watching, forget sitting and watching the Pitch Black's, the Torque's and all those other overhyped movies, give me the sleepers anyday!

Well this movie really impressed me with its mix of poker hustling and mystery suspense. Although it was obvious that there was twists to be seen after just 30mins when the 1st one is realised it isn't a movie you can predict and to its credit it isn't a movie that you want to predict it has it all sexy ladies, handsome men, suspense and mystery (with a few suprises thrown in for good measure) Stallone is maybe a little "boring" in his role but he still brings a certain amount of screen presance with his introduction. What is really strange is that the 2 main names in the movie don't even enter it till about 1 hour in a very bold move by the director which works very well. All in all i loved this movie Watch it and enjoy it!

Last night I got in to a screening for Shade. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the acting was pretty good and the story definitely held my interest. There were plenty of twists and turns and the ending caught me by surprise. The film looks great and the card tricks were pretty cool, too.

This is a recommend from me.