Good start but fizzles

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2003)

The film starts well, setting up the tension between Eddie, Vince and Carmen on several levels: age, sex, greed, love. Eddie is the worldly-wise experienced ex-pool shark; Vince has brash talent and "character"; Carmen has a bit of larceny in her recent past; all three have ambitions. They hit the road to make the most of Vince's talent, aiming for a national tournament in Atlantic City, with Eddie supplying money and aiming to teach Vince how to work the game for the most payoff. But the story fizzles after Eddie loses his own pool match with another player (played by Forrest Whittaker), prompting a personal crisis of motivation. The rest of the movie loses focus as it follows Eddie and drops most of the interesting themes it had started with. Paul Newman is always a consummate actor, no complaints here; and the young Tom Cruise is convincing as the hot-shot, naive, not-to-bright talent. The movie doesn't make as good use of Mary Mastrantonio as it could have - again, it starts with some nice potential for her character but then abandons it. Hard to put thumbs down entirely on this movie, but overall it was a disappointment. Eventually I'll have to see The Hustler and see what that was all about.