I liked shade a quite a bit, enough to where I've seen it quite a few times. There were two aspects about it that bug me (and hence why I didn't give it 7 out of 10), but I'm willing to let those things slide as the rest of the movie made up for it and made for one entertaining experience. The most entertaining aspect for me was the card tricks and gambling scenes. The story itself was nothing original and more or less a basic grifter story. However the pace & tempo kept me interested throughout. The music scores were also nice & catchy and added to the film.
This first time director who basically loves this world of gambling, cart tricks & gifting decided to write and direct a movie about card mechanics. Prior to this movie I had no idea what a card mechanic even was, so one of the reasons I liked this movie so much was because it clued me to a magical, exciting and dangerous world of which I new nothing about. For those who do not like gambling or card tricks, this movie won't appeal to you as that's its focal point. You're either into the material or your not. That being said there are aspects about it that were intentional by the director that did tick me off a bit, but not enough to sway my opinion of the movie as a whole.
The cast is great and I dunno why everyone is so skeptical of Stallone, but he did a great job in this movie as far as I'm concerned. And he didn't play a "tough" guy either per say, even though he was intimidating. The other characters including the lead did a fine job. And you could tell they were intrigued and interested in the story itself and helped bring it to life. The other thing that was nice was the trick moves were all genuine, no camera tricks, doubles, or CGI. Just good old fashion fast moving skillful hands at work. About the only characters I didn't like were Melanie Griffith and Malini. I've never found Griffith to be anything more than a cute face with a nice set of boobs. Well as this movie shows, she's well past her prime wearing a cocktail dress of which the seams are about to bust. And Malini, who's supposed to be this big mob boss but who comes off more like a gentleman than anything else
What bugged me the most in the movie was this whole concept of buying the pot by betting more than anyone else could afford and thereby winning the hand. Obviously with normal betting rules if someone goes all in and they have more money than you, you can still call and are in, granted if you win you only win what you called with, but it's the "accepted" way of betting. However the director chose to have it be that anyone could simply buy the pot and win the hand simply by betting more than you could afford. This absolutely makes no sense to me and I'm sure it would tick off anyone who knows anything about poker as its just plain stupid. The moment you have more money than anyone else (essentially the winner of the first hand), the game is essentially done unless you brought extra cash with you. Even though they didn't exploit this point more than a couple of times, it's still rather stupid when you think about it. In fact the very last hand of the game, Stallone tries to do this as he has 50K more than Stuart, and this after Stuart has already bet a several hundred thousand on the hand. So you mean to tell me that Stuart is simply going to loose the hand if he can't come up with another 50k. That's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I can't even imagine underground / illegal gambling doing this as it's just retarded. So basically the person with the most money could simply buy the pot every hand. The one huge mistake on the part of the director. What's even worse is that the director admits to doing this deliberately in the behind the scenes part, but he doesn't say why
The other part that bugged me as another reviewer already pointed out was in the end when Stallone makes reference to buying the pot for $10 as Stuart and he friends are tapped out. Anyone who had half a brain would realize that Stuart called Stallone's bet, meaning you can't raise again after you've been called. Why the director decided to have Stallone say that line is beyond me as it certainly didn't add much and didn't make any sense whatsoever
Aside from these two issues the movie was good and I enjoyed it very much, but as I saw reading some other reviewers posts these things killed the movie for them.
This first time director who basically loves this world of gambling, cart tricks & gifting decided to write and direct a movie about card mechanics. Prior to this movie I had no idea what a card mechanic even was, so one of the reasons I liked this movie so much was because it clued me to a magical, exciting and dangerous world of which I new nothing about. For those who do not like gambling or card tricks, this movie won't appeal to you as that's its focal point. You're either into the material or your not. That being said there are aspects about it that were intentional by the director that did tick me off a bit, but not enough to sway my opinion of the movie as a whole.
The cast is great and I dunno why everyone is so skeptical of Stallone, but he did a great job in this movie as far as I'm concerned. And he didn't play a "tough" guy either per say, even though he was intimidating. The other characters including the lead did a fine job. And you could tell they were intrigued and interested in the story itself and helped bring it to life. The other thing that was nice was the trick moves were all genuine, no camera tricks, doubles, or CGI. Just good old fashion fast moving skillful hands at work. About the only characters I didn't like were Melanie Griffith and Malini. I've never found Griffith to be anything more than a cute face with a nice set of boobs. Well as this movie shows, she's well past her prime wearing a cocktail dress of which the seams are about to bust. And Malini, who's supposed to be this big mob boss but who comes off more like a gentleman than anything else
What bugged me the most in the movie was this whole concept of buying the pot by betting more than anyone else could afford and thereby winning the hand. Obviously with normal betting rules if someone goes all in and they have more money than you, you can still call and are in, granted if you win you only win what you called with, but it's the "accepted" way of betting. However the director chose to have it be that anyone could simply buy the pot and win the hand simply by betting more than you could afford. This absolutely makes no sense to me and I'm sure it would tick off anyone who knows anything about poker as its just plain stupid. The moment you have more money than anyone else (essentially the winner of the first hand), the game is essentially done unless you brought extra cash with you. Even though they didn't exploit this point more than a couple of times, it's still rather stupid when you think about it. In fact the very last hand of the game, Stallone tries to do this as he has 50K more than Stuart, and this after Stuart has already bet a several hundred thousand on the hand. So you mean to tell me that Stuart is simply going to loose the hand if he can't come up with another 50k. That's literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I can't even imagine underground / illegal gambling doing this as it's just retarded. So basically the person with the most money could simply buy the pot every hand. The one huge mistake on the part of the director. What's even worse is that the director admits to doing this deliberately in the behind the scenes part, but he doesn't say why
The other part that bugged me as another reviewer already pointed out was in the end when Stallone makes reference to buying the pot for $10 as Stuart and he friends are tapped out. Anyone who had half a brain would realize that Stuart called Stallone's bet, meaning you can't raise again after you've been called. Why the director decided to have Stallone say that line is beyond me as it certainly didn't add much and didn't make any sense whatsoever
Aside from these two issues the movie was good and I enjoyed it very much, but as I saw reading some other reviewers posts these things killed the movie for them.