Review of The Grand (2007) by Richard T — 28 May 2009

I was awoken early this morning and I saw this playing on one of the movie stations. Being an avid poker fan, and a fan of a few of the touted names when it released last year, I figured I'd give the film a shot. All in all it met my expectations, nothing overly engaging or revealing, but a nice little comedy with some great laughs and equally as many misses. Herzog, Hines, Cross, and a few others are really great, but there are a few performances that don't work as well, plus given the manner of the film no single figure is really able to take centre stage and work in any brilliant comedic performance. The direction is standard and the plot, while interesting, is fairly standard as well. I liked that the actual poker hands were not as obvious as one may think in a staged poker film, but eventually I caught on to the pattern and was able to predict how things would shake down. The film is a mixed bag, but I had a fair amount of fun with it and it was really cool seeing numerous famous faces from the poker world make appearances in the film. Nothing special, but nothing terrible.

C or 3.01238214823174801234.