We all love a good movie from time to time and if you’re reading this column you no doubt love a bit of poker action too. It would make sense then that the prospect of a movie about poker would be a mouth-watering proposition, right?
Eric Bana made for a more convincing Hulk than he did a poker player
But seriously, Hollywood has a lot to answer for when it comes to putting the game we love on the big screen. For every half decent film that has quietly made it was onto the big screen there have been dozens of stinkers. And the harder they try, the worse they get.
In 2007, Hollywood tried to capitalize on the global poker boom with a film called Lucky You starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore. The story goes that Bana is a down on his luck poker hotshot struggling to fulfil his poker potential while at the same time trying to live up to the expectations of his estranged father (another poker pro), played by Robert Duvall.
The details are as irrelevant as they are dull, but needless to say the film climaxes with Bana and Duvall both reaching the final table of the WSOP Main Event and Bana rekindling their relationship by folding the nuts (best hand possible) to bow out in third. Ridiculous!
A year later, the film Deal tried to earn the respect of the fickle poker-playing audience by cramming the screen with cameos by just about every professional poker player you’ve ever seen: Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Scott Lazar, Mike Sexton. You name them, they were all there. Did it work? Nope! Another movie that tries far too hard.
So what do we want to see? To put it simply, we want something real. No, it’s not okay that Daniel Craig wins a four-way all-in with a straight flush against two full-houses and a flush in Casino Royale (although we can appreciate that James Bond requires a bit of poetic license).
Rounders is still the benchmark for poker movies
On that score, there is only one poker movie that ever hit the bullseye and remains revered to this day by the card playing community as probably the greatest movie ever made (yes, there is a fair sense of bias in that comment). Rounders was released in 1998 and because it pre-dates the global poker boom that began in 2003, it wasn’t forced through the Hollywood machine purely to make a quick buck. It doesn’t finish at the final table of the WSOP like so many bad poker movies do, instead set mostly in underground dens and dodgy back rooms as lead character Matt Damon battles his inner demons.
There is one notable poker cameo in two-time WSOP Main Event champion Johnny Chan, but rather than being randomly thrown in to give the film some sort of false credibility, his presence serves a real purpose in the overall plot. And the final showdown between Damon and Russian mobster Teddy “KGB” remains one of the most memorable scenes ever shot. Oreos, anyone?
Alas, it has been a long time between drinks for us poker aficionados – 15 years and counting – and it looks like we’ll be dusting off the old Rounders DVD for some time to come. Perhaps those Hollywood producers could learn something from the opening line of Rounders, when Matt Damon’s character tells us “Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, you are the sucker.”
