Bank Shot

Rating: Null/10 (1 July 2003)

Spoilers herein.
Here's a game I play: find the similarities between the story and how the story is told. After all, the same mind makes both decisions. Often there isn't deep reflection on the choices -- they just feel right. But sometimes the relationship shows careful selection of strategies and philosophies. We see here that the key artists know what they were about and engineered the drama to reflect the dynamics of pool.
The story is simple: characters as pool balls, bouncing off of one another, with a particular combination shot resulting in both a death of one and the better placement of another. Every element of the story reinforces this notion. The staging is very abstract, very clean. Cinemascope black and white provides a wide table.
But watch these actors. I really appreciate actors who have both ability as actors and ability to integrate their methods into the larger methods of the project. Very few actors know how to do this, or even care. They instead substitute what we as viewers call "ensemble" acting, which consists of bouncing off of each other like balls. That happens here, but this is Scott's project: he adds a dimension to this, the dimension of manipulating the dynamics of the actors. Meta-acting.
His character manipulates everyone else; two of them (Fats and Fast, whose very names indicate permutations like poolballs) try to manipulate each other, and the method is manipulating balls. But then of course, the balls are them, their configuration affects the competition between Fast and Fats, and on up the chain determines how well Scott and his character play their games.
Scott is an underappreciated actor, actually I mean to say that he is appreciated for his superb ability to do the ordinary rather than his risky attempts to do (as here) the extraordinary. I can this folded acting. Newman knew he was being manipulated as an actor and himself claims to not have learned folded acting until much later in "The Verdict."
Piper is exploited as an actress just as her character is. She's clueless.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.