Poker Insight

I like playing poker, but very few films can take a card game and turn it into something that will hold your attention for an hour or more. Sadly, neither my husband nor I enjoyed “The Grand” and for once, we’re both in agreement on a star rating.

The idea behind “The Grand” is to turn a poker tournment into something of a reality show with game play interspersed between character commentary. Writer Zak Penn’s script is really only about 29 pages long, so the cast is doing a lot of improv.

“The Grand” follows six players as they compete in a $2,000,000 pot Texas Hold’em tournament in Vegas.

Woody Harrelson is Jack Faro. He is a lifetime drug abuser (he’s tried everything you can smoke and snort) who has inherited the “Rabbit’s Foot Casino” from his grandfather. If he doesn’t win the tournament, he’s going to lose the casino.

Plus there are the twins: Lainie and Larry Schwartzman. Laine (Cheryl Hines) is a Mom who works to support her family playing poker. Her husband is a fantasy football junkie who she wishes would find ’something else.’

Larry Schzartzman (David Cross) is a single man who’s known for his obnoxious behavior at the table.

Harold Melvin (Chris Parnell) is a statistics savant with what I suspect is a massive case of Aspergers. He still lives with his Mom, who is about the only person he can (barely) stand.

Deuce Fairbanks (Dennis Farina) is a politically-incorrect old geezer who has been on the circuit for years and will cheerfully bemoan what has become of the game to anyone who’s foolish enough to listen.

Andy Andrews (Richard Kind) is a newbie who knows nothing about poker, but by sheer luck has won a chair in the tournament.

You also have a huge supporting cast of actors and real poker players. My problem was, there wasn’t a single player in the tournament who I could cheer for. Worse, when the announcer mis-called a hand, I was pretty much ready to fold on the film myself.

I’ve enjoyed several gambling films, including “Maverick” and “Rounders”, but “The Grand” failed to live up to my expectations. Thanks, I’d rather spend an hour and a half playing penny ante and experience the thrill first hand.

Rebecca Kyle, June 2008
Rating: 1 / 5

director gives many funny actors the freedom to show their skills. great movie if you don’t play poker. A must-see if you do.
Rating: 5 / 5

I’m stunned at how bad this movie is. It’s like all the people from Bravo’s Celebrity Poker were sitting around when they heard that the show wasn’t getting picked up for another season and said “hey — why don’t we do a Chris Guest kind of movie about poker? We’ll get a bunch of other celebrities who play poker and a bunch of professional poker players and we’ll make a great comedy.” Instead they made this piece of offensive and not even the least bit funny junk. Perhaps if you find jokes about killing hobos, killing small animals, and drinking semen amusing, you might enjoy this picture, but I doubt it. Even if you’re a complete poker junkie you probably won’t like this too much. There is some mild fun to be had from trying to figure out which actual poker player inspired each of the characters, and in trying to spot all the poker player cameos, but not enough to make it worth watching this film. Even the poker is pretty lame. I have to hand it to the filmmakers for convincing such amazing talent to do this garbage. I can only assume that they didn’t actually read the script first.
Rating: 1 / 5