Awesome!

Rating: 9/10 (7 October 2005)

How it works is my boyfriend gets invites to screenings, and if he doesn't know about the film he asks me, and we decide if we are free, interested or not, depending on buzz or our availability, all the same reasons anyone chooses to see a film or not. We usually get the invite weeks ahead of time, and have to RSVP. If I don't know anything about the film, I check IMDb of course.. and this time I did so. I hadn't heard about this gem, but the moment I saw the cast, I was sold.
For starters Al Pacino and Rene Russo - these actors don't bother with bad films, can't go wrong, I'm thinking... and the script was written by Dan Gilroy who has not been prolific (yet) but wrote one of my favorite-ever future romps = 1992's Freejack.
YES! RSVP, definitely, I am so there. Tonight was our screening, and I'm here to say it was SO worth it. Excellent story, excellent script (I could see this one getting an Oscar nomination for best screenplay), tight performance from Matthew McConaughey who is truly at his peak.
When Brandon Lang (McConaughey) is swept into the top tier of the sports betting industry, his life accelerates from 0-60 so fast your head spins. Walter Abrams (Pacino) and his wife Toni (Russo) have a masterfully complex relationship, and Brandon sweeps into a thoroughly complex (and amazingly believable) association with them.
The film propels forward with unbelievable tensions, a script in which nothing was stereotypical predictable, or absurd. I bought every moment -- each executed with razor sharp dialog. I don't believe it's a spoiler just to say (in and of itself) that there is an elephant, and one line regarding the elephant jumps out as the best line in any movie since "Frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn". I think the film is *that* good. This is a classic, a new classic, a powerful film that hits all the right notes. The right blend of humor, pathos, tension, drama, exposure, morality, and fairytale. The whole magilla.
I have to tell you, I've never been a sports person, and don't like sports movies. I had a "little" trepidation going into this, thinking that I don't really care for sports or sports movies. I grew up in a house where my brother was completely into sports, and I remember my Dad and brother and others gathered around watching "The Game", I've seen people in bars hanging on the edge of the TV screen, I've watched grown men jump and yell "SCORE" during hockey games, about to blow a gasket... and sorry, I never really got it. Until now.
Tonight, watching Two For The Money - I had an epiphany. I was so drawn into these characters and their fate, that when everyone was watching a big game, suddenly I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the score, I was so drawn in to this world, through the power with which the portrayals and story carry, that I GOT it, I was right there. Everything these people were feeling, I was right there.
I'll be honest, I *thought* I knew how this one was gonna end, and if it had ended that way, it would have been a cheesy way out, I was SO wrong. Thinking about the film all night after, I conclude the writer was dead right, the ending is the only logical conclusion.
This is a great powerful story about great powerful characters portrayed by a trio of great powerful actors - and indeed a brilliant supporting cast - no disrespect to Jeremy Piven - in fact I apologize for not talking about him more - but Pacino, McConaughey, and Rene Russo (never more sure-footed) kind of eclipse his supporting role - which (sorry to say) he plays like a slightly watered down Ari (Entourage) I did not vote this a ten, because of a single weak location choice. It was so unmistakably 'where it really was' rather than 'where they were saying it was'. And you may not even notice, although it was glaring to me, so you go see this and then come back here and vote 10. You will!