POKER-THEMED REVIEWS of POKER MOVIES
The following poker movie reviews have been specially chosen because the reviewers have cleverly used poker speak (poker games and gambling metaphors, card table or casino slang, full tilt terminology, online chatter, etc.), to neatly sum up their reaction to the film - whether it be a rotten tomato or a full house.Tag lines - used to promote the movie - and film posters / DVD covers have also been included when they are poker relevant.
The poker film titles are listed in alphabetical order and the list will be added to over time, so keep coming back to see what's new ... If you have any poker-themed poker movie reviews, please post them in the comments box below or email the review and the source plus your name (for an honourable mention) to THE QUOTABLE POKER PLAYER ...
ACES (2006)
Tag Lines:Three Girls.One Summer. No Limit.
ALL IN (2005)
Max Shapiro in Card Player magazine (2007)
"Shuffle up and suck! ... The whole thing was shot on the cheap, and it shows. There’s not a single minute of film that works, either by bad acting, bad writing, bad direction, or some combination therein. Is it in or is it out? Oh, it’s out. It’s way, way out.
A final note. The movie contains countless mentions of the online gaming site Party Poker, which seems to have been a sponsor of some sort. Having seen the final product, I’m sure they would appreciate you not bringing it up next time you log on."
David Cornelius on eFIlmCritic.com
Tag Lines:
It's not about the cards you're dealt, it's how you play them
It's amazing how many ways you can be ... all in.
It's amazing how many ways you can be ... all in.
CASINO ROYALE (2006)
"If you go do to see Casino Royale this week, pay no attention to the poker game, but if like me you are also a big Bond fan it's still worth seeing. There's a torture scene that will make it hard for any grown man not to leave the cinema walking like John Wayne. Bond ends up holding the nuts, in more ways than one."
Nicky O'Donnell on UK.Pokernews.com (2006)
For more on 007 and Texas Hold 'em, see
James Bond: Licence to Skill? - 007's High Stakes at the Poker Table.
THE CINCINNATI KID (1965)
Carol Cling in The Las Vegas Review-Journal
"The pool sharks in The Hustler have it all over the card sharks in The Cincinnati Kid, in spades."
Howard Thompson in The New York Times (1965)
"By the time all the bets are in, Cincinnati Kid appears to hold a losing hand."
Time magazine (1965)
"The Royal Flush of poker films."
VCPoker.com
CROUPIER (1998)
“Watching Croupier is rather like watching a roulette wheel - utterly mesmerizing. Cleverly plotted and starkly atmospheric, the film's surface simplicity is as deceptively skillful as the swift moves of a dealer's hands.”
Andrea C. Basora in Newsweek
"The poker-faced Clive Owen always plays his cards right, and director Hodges shows he’s got what it takes to guarantee a full house."
Neil Smith in Total Film (2001)
"Don't even try to outguess the movie, which has its poker face on. Just sit back and let it deal the cards.”
Kent Williams in The Isthmus [Wisconsin] (2000)
DEAL (2008)
John Anderson in Variety (2008)
"The fourth time announcer Vince Van Patten tries to enliven the inaction at the tables with phrases like 'Here comes the flop!' you’re thinking, it’s a flop, all right."
Michael Phillips in The Chicago Tribune (2008)
Tag Lines:
Know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. The game is on!
FINDER’S FEE (2001)
Nick Jones on EyeForFilm.co.uk
THE GOOD THIEF (2003)
"A casino heist movie so smooth and satisfying it makes the similar Ocean’s Eleven look like a game of Three-Card Monte."Lou Lumenick in The New York Post (2003)
THE GRAND (2007)
"Add poker to the long list of games that typically lose whatever makes them compelling as soon as they’re arranged and restaged for film ... As the convergence of two cooling trends - poker and the comic mock-doc - the movie is itself somewhat the victim of a bum deal. Even so, it’s played all in."Jim Ridley in The Village Voice (2008)
"The Grand is the best poker movie to come from the studios since Rounders. The bad news is that it doesn't have much competition. For the hardcore poker enthusiast, The Grand will give you more than one good chuckle and is worth the price of admission. Will the public at large embrace the movie? My guess is that the deck is stacked against that happening."
John Caldwell on PokerNews.com (2008)
HAVANA (1990)
"An over-extended misdeal of a movie that refuses to fold."Desson Howe in The Washington Post (1990)
HIGH ROLLER aka STUEY (2003)
"As a movie, alas, High Roller ain’t much. For poker fans, I’ll put it in terms you can understand: Think of it as sitting on a Jack-eight. Off suit."Christopher Null on FilmCritic.com (2005)
HOUSE OF GAMES (1987)
"In David Mamet's House of Games, the Games are fun but the House is a flimsy pyramid of cards."Desson Howe in The Washington Post (1987)
"Playwright David Mamet's directorial debut is a cardsharp con game full of tricks."
James Rocchi on Netflix
Tag Lines:
Where the game is never over.
Human nature is a sucker bet.
Human nature is a sucker bet.
LUCKY YOU (2007)
"After several delayed release dates, Warner Bros. finally lays down its cards with Lucky You, and it’s a weak hand."Brian Lowrey in Variety (2007)
"Starts off promisingly, then grows as lifeless as a poker face."
Claudia Puig in USA Today (2007)
"By the fifth All In, I wanted All Out."
Willie Waffle on WaffleMovies.com
Tag Lines:
Change your game. Change your life.
MAVERICK (1994)
“To paraphrase the lead character, Maverick rarely bluffs and never, ever cheats its audience.” James Berardinelli on ReelViews.net (1994)
"Jodie Foster, who throws herself into this flirty role, makes Miss Kitty look like an old sourpuss, and whether it’s Five-Card Stud or a studly card player, she knows when to Hold ‘em and when to walk away."
Rita Kempley in The Washington Post (1994)
Tag Lines:
In their hands, a deck of cards was the only thing more dangerous than a gun.
OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001)
“Are you in or are you out? It's George Clooney asking and director Steven Soderbergh dealing the cards; already anted up are Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and, yep, the legendary Carl Reiner. So the real question is, how do you say no?”
Terry Lawson in The Detroit Free Press (2001)
"A bunch of jokers play their winning hand."
Brian Miller in The Seattle Weekly (2001)
Terry Lawson in The Detroit Free Press (2001)
"A bunch of jokers play their winning hand."
Brian Miller in The Seattle Weekly (2001)
Steve Schneider in The Orlando Weekly (2001)
ROUNDERS (1998)
"Everything in Rounders is right there on the surface. Watching it is as exciting as playing poker with all the cards face up."David Ansen in Newsweek (1998)
"Because I'm a sucker -- I was entertained ... The script is good at making you think that it has better cards than it really does. And the actors constitute a royal flush - OK, OK, enough with the poker metaphors."
David Edelstein on Slate.com (1998)
"Rounders, in the end, doesn’t have quite enough wild cards."
Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly (1998)
"No big deal!"
Chris Hewitt in The St Paul Pioneer Press
"And while it's intermittently engaging, the drama's flatter than a sucker's wallet."
Rita Kempley in The Washington Post (1998)
Sean Means on Film.com (1998)
"Its full house of talent doesn’t make for a winning hand."
Luisa F. Ribeiro in The Baltimore City Paper (2006)
"Good cast, but fold."
Joel Siegel on Good Morning America (1998)
"Not a full house by any means."
Adam Smith in Empire magazine
"Matt Damon plays with stacked deck!"
Gary Thompson in The Philadelphia Daily News (1998)
"Stylish entertainment and smartass fun when director John Dahl (The Last Seduction) plays his strong suit (a gifted cast) instead of his weakest (a derivative plot)."
Peter Travers in Rolling Stone magazine (1998)
"Rounders makes you feel the suspense and thrive in the thrill of the moment, always coming up aces."
Phil Villarreal in The Arizona Daily Star
Tag Lines:
In the poker game of life women are the rake
In The Game Of Life ... Play The Cards You're Dealt
Trust everyone ... but always cut the cards
Pick a card, any card
it's immoral to let a sucker keep his money
In The Game Of Life ... Play The Cards You're Dealt
Trust everyone ... but always cut the cards
Pick a card, any card
it's immoral to let a sucker keep his money
SHADE (2003)
Robert Koehler in Variety (2004)
Tag Lines:
When gambling your life, leave nothing to chance.
Getting played ... it's all in the game
Lie, Cheat, Steal... your deal!
WILD BILL (1995)
"20 minutes in, writer-director Walter Hill puts his cards on the table. It’s a dead man’s hand."Mick LaSalle in The San Francisco Chronicle (1995)
GREAT QUOTES about POKER MOVIES
"Matt Damon revived the poker movie genre in Rounders (1998), but Hollywood has been fascinated by poker and poker culture since Hopalong Cassidy saved the day by posing as a newbie poker player in Sunset Trail (1939), and Gene Autry starred in the classic poker murder mystery, Loaded Pistols (1948)."
PokerWorld24.org
“The best film about poker, curiously enough, isn’t about poker at all. It’s The Hustler (1961), which is about pool players. Poker in movies never quite comes off … The drama is an interior one, consisting of what goes on in the player’s minds. The big hand, when it finally comes up in a movie, doesn’t seem as thrilling as it should, shorn of the rest of the play around it.”
David Spanier in Total Poker (1977)PokerWorld24.org
“The best film about poker, curiously enough, isn’t about poker at all. It’s The Hustler (1961), which is about pool players. Poker in movies never quite comes off … The drama is an interior one, consisting of what goes on in the player’s minds. The big hand, when it finally comes up in a movie, doesn’t seem as thrilling as it should, shorn of the rest of the play around it.”
"Though movies are not exactly an accurate reflection of reality, we have to admit that we can pick up a thing or two from them. More so, we can have a good time while we are it. The same thing goes for poker movies. We see the exceptional highs and lows of a poker game in these movies. We see brilliant moves that may not ever happen in real life. Yet that does not discount the fact that we can have a great time and maybe learn something from these movies."
SmokePoker.com"So many films use poker as a set piece but give the viewer no more insight into the game than a short bit of table talk and some chips being thrown around."
HomeTheaterForum.com“Hollywood often uses gambling, and less often card playing, to add a flavour to a movie. Unfortunately most of these movies have silly scenes (House of Games) or stink (Honeymoon in Vegas) or both (Maverick).”
Steve Badger on PlayWinningPoker.comTheGameHunter.co.uk
“Films such as The Cincinnati Kid and GoodFellas portray poker as the domain of the hardened villain.”
Stephen McGinty in The Scotsman (2004)
"Cinema's relationship with poker has endured for 100 years. In 1898, Wild West card players featured in one of Thomas Edison's earliest films, Poker at Dawson City. In 1998, we have the slick and extremely entertaining Rounders, with Matt Damon's whizz-kid piling up the chips in a smoke-filled New York basement. Rewind through any of the intervening decades and you will find poker employed as a hard-working, versatile servant: by scriptwriters in search of a kick-start for their story, by directors in search of claustrophobic tension, and by stars who love being filmed holding all the aces."
Daniel Rosenthal in The Independent (1998)
"Hollywood has long known a high stakes poker table is a powder keg of dramatic potential."
PokerWorld24.org
"Cheating is poker’s longest tradition. Every time you hear an old story or see an old movie with a poker scene, there’s either explicit cheating or suggestions that it’s going on. The Sting, The Cincinnati Kid, Big Hand for a Little Lady, Rounders … even the atrocious Shade … each one has cheats and/or deceptions. Cheating is as much a part of our culture as the game itself."
WiseHandPoker.com
Colin M Jarman
The Quotable Poker Player
If you know of any poker-related poker movie reviews, please share them with us in the comments box below.
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