Written and directed by Mars Callahan, this film tells the story of a hustler who leaves the pool hall, but has to return to help his brother pay back a large debt.

This movie will make you want to play pool.

I don’t know what it is about movies like this or Rounders. You watch them and then just want to go out and do that activity. Perhaps it’s because Callahan makes pool hustling look so cool and easy. Minus the fact when he gets his wrist broken.

Christopher Walken is money in this movie. He and Callahan perform so well together, it looks completely natural. The dialogue throughout the film is a symbol of perfection, especially the opening conversation between Callahan’s character and Chico, the African-American hustler. That scene should go down in history as one of the funniest movie scenes involving the “N” word.

The edition of multiple real world pool greats is pretty cool, too, but unless you are lame and watch 9 ball on ESPN2, you probably won’t recognize any of them.

I like the stylization of the pool work, which has become increasingly overdone in films, yet for some reason in this one, works and looks really cool. Which means I should also bring up the fact that they did all these pool shots in this movie. Wow. I wish I was a fraction as good as these guys when it comes to some of the shots used. The one-handed shot that Callahan’s character plays to get his girlfriend that job interview is so sweet.

This film has some swearing and minor violence, but I would highly recommend it to everyone.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.