DVD Movie Review: "HIGH ROLLER: The Stu Ungar Story" ****

[Mark Heide]

This movie kept my interest from beginning to end. This is well written and provides possible insights as to why Stu lived his life on the edge. His downfall was his vices of gambling and later drugs which the later probably contributed to his downfall. What I found most interesting is that Stu could not imagine himself doing anything other than gambling for a living and pleasure.
The movie does not present any real insights for card smarts. Unfortunately, it was written by someone that still believes tells are the most important skill as demonstrated in a Gin Rummy scene that reminded me of the Rounders when Matt Damon tells all the players what their tells mean. Anyway, we have had this tells argument for sometime on this forum, but we know that it really is not important if you are playing mid-limit or higher because most people are aware of tells and will either try to trick you or they just don't give off any. But, the movie did mention the scientists and mathematicians that came to make a living in Vegas, so I give them credit for that.
The DVD extras don't add to the value of the movie. The comentary was boring, mostly talking about how they filmed a scene. I would have rather had them make comments on real events or rummors about Stu and the poker world.

For the movie entertainment value this gets my rating of excellent.

Happy Viewing

Mark

[NJchick]

I watched it last night on cable. The script was sub par and the acting was horrendous. The poker scenes were mediocre at best. They ruined what could have been a very provocative story to put on screen. Blech.

[ttleistdci]

I was excited to watch it, but really let down when I actually saw it. They did a terrible job bringing an excellent story to the screen.
I wouldn't watch it again.

[johnfromvirginia]

I disagree. The half-assed "Meet Joe Black" thing was not great. But I think they did a pretty good job of portraying a brilliant man who was a true addict in every sense of the word. It was a depressing movie, but it's a depressing story. The movie wasn't the best I've ever seen, but I thought it was above average. On a scale of 1-10, I'd probably give it a 7.

[Cornell Fiji]

The amount of great material that they had for this movie was obscene. Here is a man who is arguably the best tournament player of all time, a brilliant man all around, who was also a terribly addicted gambler. He also blew all of his poker winnings on drugs and parties. With all of this going for it and with the poker boom I couldn't believe that the movie wasn't going to theaters first. I couldn't wait for this movie to come out.

I can't remember ever being more dissapointed by a movie. They had so much to work with and produced so little. I thought the movie was terrible.

-Steve

[ttleistdci]

I agree...they couldn't have possibly had better material to work with. Whoever produced/directed this really dropped the ball. They could've taken advantage of poker's popularity and really put some effort into this one and made some serious money in the process.
I don't think it did Stu's brilliance any justice.

[TobDog]

Where is it playing on cable? is it on DVD?

thanks

[Big Al]

This movie totally sucks, thats why it went straight to video/DVD.