User Reviews

A good soundtrack, excellent acting, and a pleasing enough plot to keep you from growing bored are the strong points of this movie. Unfortunately, underplayed characters, clichés, and lack of subject knowledge held it back from its full potential.

The trio of idiotic genius' are helmed masterfully by their actors, with Johnny Galecki stealing the show when his character starts slipping into the world of easy money. Unfortunately, none of the characters are new or fresh.

Casey, a shy nerd whom we rarely get to see anything of, joins the crew when another character decides to "adopt" him because he was lost his first day on campus - despite unwittingly setting the plans in motion, his character does little besides provide a contrasting personality to the other two leads.

Jude is a womanizing party boy who is the main schemer of the group. He is also addicted to everything, making him very, very attached the money and the thrill of gaining it. He tends to be the more spirited of the three, getting himself into the most trouble. He also provides comedy relief.

Finally, the main "hero", Tobey, is excited about the plan, but is more focused on the attractive Hunter, played by Rachel Leigh Cook. He is the child prodigy who smooths over some of the bumpier problems, and tries to keep Jude from blowing things over the top.

These three put their plans into action, only to have a problem getting word out. After a conman's maneuver, our three characters are rolling in money, and the trouble begins.

Really, the movie tries hard to be a jack of all trades, and in trying to do so fails at being fully delightful at anything. The romance is unbelievable between Hunter and Tobey, and highly forgotten until it becomes convenient. The supposed brotherly feelings between Jude and Tobey is also lost to the wind, as the chemistry between actors just isn't there. The plot calls for the suspension of disbelief in every scene involving the mafia, who are tame and uncreative. It also has, in my opinion, a cheesy cop-out ending.

By the time the credits roll, you really couldn't care less what happens to the characters. In fact, in the case of Jude, you might even be wishing things had turned disastrous for them.

However, it was a fun film, and one I'd recommend to my friends for a lazy afternoon viewing.

Most of the critiques of this movie are accurate, but that's why I loved it!

I'm not a fan of hardcore mobster stuff, I'm not a gambler, I'm not a college student anymore, but this lets my imagination get into those worlds just a little bit. It gets my mind off the daily grind, without having to get into really disturbing drama in any issue. I'm a guy with little money to spend, and I passed on several big name movies to pick up this one, cause I knew it would be exactly this, and I was not disappointed! The performances are believable enough, the girls are cute enough, the editing is quick enough, the 'vette is cool enough, and that's enough for me!

SPOILER ALERT:

I took Paul 415's advice who billed this flick as a 'fun movie' and went to my video store and rented BOOKIES. I am glad he had fun watching it...I really didn't.

When I re-read Paul's comments...it's seemed like he was plugging the movie instead of writing something about it. Talking about who is in it, what they were in before, who wrote it, what the writer wrote before...just seemed like an over-glorified plug. Then I looked at the credits...is Paul really Paul Greenstone, the producer of the movie? Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Here's an actual review of the movie. I didn't hate it, I didn't like it.

At the end, I was wondering why it was even made. Here's my point by point analysis of all facets of the production, as interpreted by just another movie goer:

Performances: Nick Stahl and Johnny Galecki were standouts.

However, they seemed to look lost a lot of the time, like they were trying to figure out their motivation. Like they had a severe lack of direction. This applies more so to Stahl, as I feel he's a superb actor. But it didn't seem there was anything there to sink his teeth into.

Rachel Leigh Cook was weak here. Way way way miscast for this role. I know she's a name, but c'mon. She did not fit the part. David Proval. I agree with Paul, he was one of the best actors on the Sopranos. But he was totally under utilized here. He was like a one-dimensional cookie cutter mobster. Same thing with his co-hort John Diehl. Here was a chance for director Mark Illsley to shine, instead, he just lets these fine actors waste away. In fact, one could construe that these mobsters were homosexual lovers.

In all their scenes, they are alone. The restaurant scene stands out... no broads, no goomas, no strippers...I was waiting for them to share a kiss! That would have been at least interesting. If you're going to follow a cliché, then do it with some panache. Have fun with it. Instead, these guys are just sitting there, reciting their lines, as if they were waiting for their paycheck from production.

And they weren't even bad guys you love to hate...

Dialogue: Very forced and out of touch. When the basketball player said, "So I'm your n-word now, is that it?" I wanted to puke. The editing and camera was interesting, but it wasn't anything that hasn't been done before. Same camera/editing tricks, different movie.

Plot...a lot that went on on this college campus was not plausible. The money in the books idea was interesting, but not without a huge margin of error.

When I was in college, partying and carrying on in a dorm room like that would never happen, and neither would a functional bookmaking operation...I know you can say, "It's just a movie!" but shouldn't movies try to resemble reality?

Furthermore, the ending was very anti-climactic. When it's revealed that they bet on the other side of the fixed bet, I was staring at the screen thinking, 'That's it? That's the ending? That's the payoff?' I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Character arc. At the end, do these guys learn anything? No.

Other than 'we made a lot of money, but there was too much risk involved.' They didn't grow...nothing learned, nothing gained.

I think the main problem with this movie was it's direction. From what I know about Mark Illsley, he's a middle aged guy from Northern Cali. Why not bring in someone younger with some edge to direct this film? Why not even let the writer, Michael Bacall, direct? He wrote it, he must know something about the subject, plus he's younger than Illsley...why not? Oh yeah, Illsley stirred up a lot of buzz at Sundance in '99. Well, lightning doesn't strike twice it seems. Illsley's age and hip factor were extremely apparent here...he simply did not know about this world enough to have been given the director's cap.

I did see Manic, it is good, it is well done, and I cannot believe this script was totally the result of Michael Bacall. Maybe earlier drafts of the script were better, and there might have been too much director meddling. The result is a barely mediocre movie.

The only difference between this movie and the made for TV movie "Bigshot" is that these characters say the f-word a lot, and one of them uses drugs. Otherwise, this totally could have been made for TV. But then again, it was done smarter and better already with "Bigshot."

Sad. This really is an interesting topic, and it really could have been made into a great movie. The potential to actually say something was wasted away...ah, such is Hollywood...

SPOILER ALERT I have to agree with Industry Guy's take on this one...not even close to the real deal. I got back two days ago from Sundance...caught a lot of good flicks, suggested a few buys to my company, but told them to steer clear of this one. Being an avid gambler, I was hoping this would be a fun movie, maybe entertaining, perhaps even worthy of praise...I went 0 for 3 on this bet. My parlay went south in the first five minutes. I'd really like to know the extent of knowledge the writer, producers, and director have on the subject.

Did someone tell them they knew what they were talking about? You figure for a few thousand dollars they could have hired a consultant to red line the script and make it at least resemble reality. First off, if I lost a bet to these chicken necks, I would have laughed when they showed up for payment. If you're going to make a movie about gambling, at least have a character who you believe will inflict damage on a dead beat. Second, what idiot would set up an ILLEGAL bookmaking operation in their DORM ROOM? Whatever happened to discretion? Are these dolts asking to be pinched? Why not have them set it up in an off campus apartment? Third, the mafia??? Someone involved in the production could have at least had an iota of originality and mad the antagonist someone other than an Italian mobster!!! How cliche. Furthermore, if the mob caught wind of their operation (which they wouldn't), they would have muscled in for a piece of the action...NOT run them off. Fourth...fixing basketball games, shaving points, blah blah blah. The sad thing is, the money spent on this movie could have been given to someone who actually knows about the world of gambling and the result could have been a decent film. All that we're left with, however, is this piece of nonsense.