I was pleasantly surprised by this find on HBO the other night. I highly disagree with Roland E. Zwick's earlier post. The pleasure of this film is that the action is NOT primarily set on the relationship between Barrymore and Bana. It allowed the audience to explore the relationship between Bana and Duvall. Usually, romantic comedies are set the other way around (like in Music and Lyrics where all of the attention was centered on Barrymore and Grant - boring). Also, there were many bets away from the actual poker game that made this film both hilarious and dramatic. Horatio Sanz is a comic master, in my opinion, and is one of the more underrated comic actors of current cinema. When, Bana loses his entry fee to his father, you really feel that this guy is out of control. On that vein, I think that Bana could have been a little more desperate in situations such as those, but it could have been that because it was his father he felt that he could always have a chance to win it back somehow. The screenwriters (Roth and Hanson) did an excellent job of keeping the audience off balance. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was wrong. I like that in a movie. When I don't know where the plot is going, I feel like I'm watching something new. The direction by Hanson was excellent, as expected. This was no "Rounders", but it was a very good attempt to make a romantic comedy/drama with the profession/vice of gambling as it's focal point.
