Movies about people shouting into phones, usually about money, constitute a strange sub-category in film. Usually they have to do with buying and selling stocks, but “Two for the Money” is a gambling picture.
| A gamble: Sports betting “adviser” Al Pacino draws prognosticating wizard Matthew McConaughey into the big-time world of gambling, and a familiar morality tale unfolds. Pacino’s fun, but the movie doesn’t make point spreads interesting.
Rated: R rating is for language, nudity. Now showing: tk |
Sports gambling, to be precise. Al Pacino, in one of his schlumpy-suit-and-goatee roles, plays Walter Abrams, a big-time “adviser” who predicts the winners in football games. Sort of a Jimmy the Greek, but smoother.
He discovers a phenom of prognostication, a guy who “makes Nostradamus look like a novelty act.” This is Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey), onetime college quarterback and pro washout.
Brandon’s got an uncanny sense of winners and losers, and Walter installs him in the best office in his company. He also messes with Brandon’s head, using a variety of Svengali tricks to make his boy happy.
These tricks may or may not include Walter’s wife (Rene Russo), whom he keeps throwing together with Brandon. Except Brandon’s not Brandon anymore; he’s now named “John Anthony,” which I guess is Walter’s idea of a slick name for a gambling tout. Or a porn star.
Something has to go wrong, and it does. What’s surprising is how little really happens in this story, even though it takes two hours to happen. I kept waiting for some big twist to slither in and break everything up, or for Armand Assante’s lethal Puerto Rican high-roller to storm the offices of Pacino &Co.
But it’s just another “Wall Street”-style morality tale, with echoes of Pacino’s polluting influence in “The Devil’s Advocate” and “The Recruit.” Pacino can still get wry laughs out of simple dialogue, but it’s very simple dialogue.
McConaughey has spent a lot of time in the weight room, but his performance is something he’s done before. Jeremy Piven (from “Entourage”) is wasted in a small role as Brandon’s rival in picking winners.
The real problem is the odd subject. For the inveterate gambler, point spreads and “over and unders” are riveting, but solely because they’ve got money riding on it. The only money involved with this movie is what you pay for your ticket to get inside. There’s no suspense in that.
Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey star in “Two for the Money.”
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