Lady Vegas

Based on Beth Raymer's "Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling," this is a fun and entertaining movie.

A sleeper at the box office for sure, but for those seeking 90 minutes to unwind and forget about reality for a while, this film takes its viewers on a fun, if not entirely realistic, ride through the lives of professional gamblers.

Other reviewers have criticized this movie for being simple, but that's what gives the movie its charm. (The book is probably more detailed and was well reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and the New York Times Book Review).

Don't compare this movie to Rounders (Matt Damon & Edward Norton) or 21 (Kevin Spacey). It's not a drama with complicated plot lines, but a lighthearted, romantic comedy with a fun cast that's easy to watch.

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is an ex private dancer, looking to make it big in Las Vegas. She meets Dink (Bruce Willis) a sports gambler who shows her the ways of betting. Dink gets very close with Beth, much to the ire of Dink's wife Tulip (Catharine Zeta-Jones)

I generally try to respect people's opinions these days. I'm a rather opinionated person myself, so I implore people to speak their minds. But, one thing I can't get my head around is the low rating for this movie, 4.7, huh? Granted, it's not gonna make head spin if you decide to see it, but I thought it had energy and lots of likability to it. Lay The Favorite benefits from a fantastic cast. Gambling is a very touchy subject among people. It's always a risk (No. I didn't use the word gamble, because that would have been a lame pun) when one gambles. Maybe people felt this movie glorified gambling in a way? I don't know. I could see that, but I thought the addition of romance was very much needed here. I would have gotten bored if it was all about gambling. The development of the characters is what made this movie. I thought Bruce Willis brought a fine comedic touch, and genuinely seemed to be interested in the material. His relationship with Rebecca Hall was funny and touching. Willis was quite good here. I cracked up at the mini meltdowns he had. Rebecca Hall is fantastic. Her energetic performance, and her perky style does wonders for this movie, and I had my eyes glued to the screen every moment she was on it. She's sexy, cute, funny, and downright irresistible. She was a main reason as to why I enjoyed this as much as I did. I also enjoyed her love story with Joshua Jackson. Zeta-Jones is OK as Dink's husband. She had a couple of sassy moments here and there. Vince Vaughn is a bit OTT as Rosy, but managed to not get on my nerves, which is a big compliment in his case. The ending seemed totally Hollywood, and contrived. For some reason, I had trouble buying it. It seemed to me like the message was "The risk of gambling is worth it, and if you take risks, you might wind up lucky" That's a minor carp, though.

Final Thoughts: I had a decent time with this film. It passes the time effortlessly, and you won't regret watching it. It's not something I'll ever see again, but I didn't mind it at all, and I think people are really unfair with it.

5.7/10

"Lay the Favorite" has many dissenters, most complaining that it's completely unbelievable. It's true, it is. Beth (Rebecca Hall) is a ditzy bimbo who quits her job as a stripper and moves to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. A great idea! Instead, as soon as she arrives, she gets a very lucrative job as a sports bettor for a bookie who isn't a bookie since bookmaking is illegal. She's a genius with numbers and words.

She's also capable of getting guys to do whatever they think she wants. They need to do the thinking since she's too dumb to even know what she wants. The kicker to this story of an over-sexed, ditzy bimbo, numbers genius, sports-betting millionaire, is that it's a true story. I decided to watch the YouTube video of the real Beth Raymer reading from her memoir which this film is based on to see if Hall accurately captured her varying characteristics. And she did. She does the hair twirl and the dumb girl giggle as she describes the kings of sports gambling giving her job after job after job.

I'm one of the few who liked Rebecca Hall in this. So different from her usual indie fare. She has to ooze sex and play beautiful even though she has never really been described that way before. But in order to like this movie at all, you need to care about this floozy. Other than her ridiculous free ride through life, nothing really interesting happens to her.

Her first job in Vegas is with Dink (Bruce Willis) who owns Dink Inc. She loves him, he loves her … mind? Yeah, right. Apparently he does. So when she gets herself in trouble along with a nice, smart successful guy (Joshua Jackson) who doesn't seem to mind throwing his life away for her, he comes to the rescue.

Personally, I found Hall's sexy naiveté and Willis' extreme gambling entertaining enough to keep watching. However, the movie doesn't seem to play the unfortunate reality that this is a true story for laughs. When there's a story too unbelievable to be true then you should be making fun of everybody who allowed it to occur, instead the film just wanted the audience to go along for a fun ride. It is somewhat fun, it's also very unbelievable, and ultimately, pretty stupid.

Who Might Like This: Anybody who likes seeing ditzy bimbos succeed in life; people who like watching unbelievably true stories; fans of Rebecca Hall.

Rebecca Hall does an excellent job as a naive bookie in Lay. The other actors, Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Vince Vaughn are great in their supporting roles, but.... This movie was poorly written: the jokes fall flat, the script doesn't develop enough so that the audience can care about the characters, the gambling is explained only enough so that gamblers can understand what the actors are doing and there is very little plot action that's not inside an office looking at TV screens with sports games on them. Stephen Frears, the director, has done some major work such as "the Queen," and "High Fidelity," and i would think he was brought in to save this, but it's shot so plainly, like a made for TV movie. I get the feeling that this was filmed in a couple weeks and everyone involved wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I give it 3 out of 10 for Rebecca Hall's efforts and the fact that she comes off as incredibly sexy, but other then that, it's totally forgettable.

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is stripping in private homes to make ends meet. On the advise of motel neighbor Holly (Laura Prepon), she goes to work for bookie Dink (Bruce Willis) and finds that she's actually quite good at it. She's good with numbers. People like dealing with her on the phone. And Dink likes her a lot. The problem is Dink's wife Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones) doesn't want him to like her so much. When Dink starts to lose money, things blow up.

When you consider the talents in front of and behind the camera, it's a wonder how things could go so wrong. Award winning director Stephen Frears is the biggest culprit. The script may need better jokes, but it's mainly Frears who couldn't extract any laughs from this. In the end, this is mostly his responsibility.

Rebecca Hall is doing a squeaky-voice fast-talking bobble head doll. It's completely fake, and leaves my head shaking. It doesn't fit her at all. If her mannerisms are meant to be funny, it got no laughs from me. Everybody else is doing a competent if not very impressive work. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bruce Willis could have been an explosive couple but they're not. The only interesting acting comes from Vince Vaughn who plays a wildman bookie.

Not much goes right in this movie. It is absolutely not funny. It is watchable, but afterward I wonder why I watched it.