Tuesday 17 January 2012

The Color of Money

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Year:1986
Country of origin:USA
Director:Martin Scorsese
Genre:Pool hustling drama
Starring:Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Rating:5/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863/
Tagline:The hustler isn't what he used to be, but he has the next best thing: a kid who is
Favourite line:"You remind me that money won is twice as sweet as money earned."

Scorcese's loving portrayal of the murky world of pool hustling is a splendid effort.

Paul Newman plays 'Fast' Eddie Felson, former hustler extraordinaire who now makes a living in the whisky trade.
One day, whilst in a pool hal,l he happens to see Tom Cruise's Vincent Lauria strutting his stuff on the baize and decides to rekindle his interest in the hustling game.
After some convincing, Lauria agrees to go on the road, travelling to Atlantic City to embroil himself in the big money stakes. But Felson doesn't just want him to win, he wants to teach him the tricks of the hustling game, a hard lesson that involves losing more games than you win, no matter the fallibility of the opposition.
But Lauria doesn't want to play by his rules.

Never attaining the intensity of some of Scorcese's other works (Raging Bull and Taxi Driver come to mind), this is still a majestic piece of film-making, Scorcese's unparalleled skill at filming scenes in a kinetic fashion perfectly suited to capturing the pace and controlled chaos of a high stakes pool game.
Newman is excellent, all brooding machismo and, truthfully, the only slight annoyance is Cruise's sometimes OTT performance as Lauria, a man who wouldn't even know which letter the word humility begins with.
It's H Vince.
Fucking H.
An superb supporting cast including the divine Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Lauria's feisty and flirtatious girlfriend Carmen and the never less than amazing John Turturro as Julian, a wannabee pool hustler who never quite hits the big time.
A bit of a boys film (the missus got bored with all the pool) this is a great movie, plain and simple.

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