Review of Poolhall Junkies (2002) by Kevin D — 10 Sep 2012

I go to UMass Amherst. Every Friday and Saturday most people at my school get drunk, high, or both. I play pool (I also play during the week and I play at pool halls when I go back home too). I say that just in case you are astonished at the perfect score I gave this movie.

However, I'm not just giving the movie a perfect score because I love pool. I like football, but that doesn't mean Friday Night Lights or Any Given Sunday are perfect. I'm basing my grade for this movie on the movie itself and not just the subject matter, although the subject matter soesn't hurt.

A lot of critics wrote this of as a "The Hustler" or "The Color of Money" wannabe. I watched the first half of The Hustler last week and thought that the first half hour of pool was good, but the shmaltzy romance story put a dent in everything that movie was doing right and as a result, it bored me.

I hear that that movie is a classic, so I may check it out in the future. Right now I'm an avid student of pool and Poolhall Junkies is my textbook. I could watch this movie 2 or 3 times in a row and still not be bored.

This is a movie that is honest with itself: it isn't a prestige picture, it's not a relationship movie, it's a pool movie, so most of it consists of pool. The story line is involving, albeit standard.

If you're a pool enthusiast, you will be taken in by the action right from the start. The games and hustle maneuvers are fun to watch. The characters are all interesting in some way and the acting, especially by Chazz Palminteri, Rick Schroder, Michael Rosenbaum, and Christopher Walken is always flashy and entertaining.

The main plot takes a while to develop, which my be a bad think for non-pool fans, but why would they be watching in the first place? Well, actually, my sister is not much of a pool fan and she liked the movie a lot.

Basically, if you like hustling movies or character driven pieces, you'll like this one. You'll love it if you like confrontational scenes and entertaining and witty dialogue. The movie has a grimy stlye that most people criticize.

Whether it was intentional to reinforce the dark underworld of pool or simply a really low budget to blame, I was okay with the look of the film. Mars Callahan might not be the best actor or director in the world, but he did his best.

He let the screenplay and great pool playing speak for itself. This movie will hook you right in for an inside look at the underground world of pool.