As a pool player....

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2005)

As a competitive pool player I have a soft spot in my heart for a great pool movie that captures the pool scene and the personality of the game. As a pool player I also judge the movies about this sport based on how realistic they are to the real game and pool scene. There are only 2 great movies about pool, this is one of them and the other is it's predesesor "The Hustler".
***********SPOILERS**************** This movie is often misunderstood by many of the people who watch it, characters act in very real yet never well explained ways. The characters don't spell it out for the audience, they are made to think and that hurts this movie because most people don't want to have to think while watching a movie. Nevertheless this movie has many levels in it and many of the lines and happenings in the movie are very deep and not realized without very close attention and thought. Such questions as "Did Eddie lose to Amos on purpose?" or "What does Vince mean when he says "you used me"?" or "Why does Eddie quit the tournament at the end?" are often asked and this is because the characters never spell out the answers to the audience, they instead act real and simply do what they would really do and say what they would really say in that situation rather then dialoging to the audience so they keep up with the plot.
Answers are there, The movie is entirely about Eddie, Vincent is simply a tool used by Eddie to get back onto the road and hustle, Vincent is a loud cocky decoy too keep the attention while the "backer" cleans up and makes a fortune on the side, this point is missed by most who watch the movie. Being a backer was NEVER Eddies intention, it was a guise to allow him to hustle as a money-man, no one expects the backer to be a pro and a former best player in the USA, years since Eddie showed his face in a pool hall only the very rare old timer will recognize him now and the young people are clueless marks. Amos snaps Eddies delusions of grandeur though on a night when Eddie himself is hustled and realizes that he is simply not good enough anymore to do what he did in his youth. He says it himself after loosing a fortune to Amos, in his youth he would have beaten Amos and turned the tables on the hustler, he fed off players like that. Eddie realizes he is no longer the hustler able to beat the top players, he is now the mark and prey for those top players. He cuts Vincent loose because the fact is Vincent is of no use as a decoy if Eddie cannot beat the people he planned to play. Vincent is simply now in the way of what Eddie needs to do, start again and be reborn into the game of pool, rise through the ranks and again take him place at the top.
Seriously HIGHLY underrated movie that is largely misunderstood and considered by most to be far more shallow then it is because they take it at face value and notice Tom Cruise doing cue tricks and bank shots and miss what is happening with the characters and Eddie. Then again the audience gets hustled into watching the young cocky kid while the old hustler does exactly what he always planned to do so maybe it is a little ironic that the movie is poorly judged by people that were hustled by Eddie right along with the characters. Highly recommend people watch this one again and realize that Eddie NEVER planned on being a backer, that was a guise to allow him to return to his hustling ways before he ever played Fats as can be seen in the opening scene of "The Hustler". Vincent was a lot like Charlie, there for an act. Only at least Cahrlie knew he was being used to allow Eddie to make money with his skills. Only later in the movie does Vincent realize he was a pawn and Eddies match against Amos and a thousand other matches like that was the real reason he was taken on the road