Strong Acting, Weak Story

Rating: 3/10 (3 April 2006)

"Two for the Money" is a story about a man whose football career as a quarterback ended early because of a vicious leg injury. He goes to work for a small time sports betting 900 number in Las Vegas, after discovering he has the uncanny ability to pick winners of football games. When he was there, he used the callers' money to bet on his picks for the games, and received a small percentage of the pay out if they won. He is soon offered a job in New York working for a larger company doing the same. He accepts this job and moves to New York dreaming of a better life for himself.
In "Two for the Money" director D.J. Caruso tries to show us the shady world of sports betting and the screwed up people involved in it. Caruso uses well known actors like Al Pacino and Mathew McConaughey, and places them in an office setting where people are frantically answering phones.
The hero of the movie Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) playing the role of a sports betting guru, does the best performance of his career. Due to the advice of Walter Abrams (Al Pacino), Brandon takes on the persona of John Anthony, a slick talking, high rolling, city slicker. Walter, who is fighting with his addictions to alcohol and gambling, has a love hate relationship with Brandon. As most of us expect from Pacino, his on the money performance really makes me believe he is this deeply conflicted person willing to do anything to make his business successful. Including things like, going to meetings with recovering gamblers and giving them his business card. Toni (Rene Russo) does a fantastic job playing Walters' wife, an ex-drug addict who was abused as a child.
Due to the efforts of the cast and director, I cannot say anything bad about acting in this film. This usually would mean I would say "hey this is a great movie you should definitely see it." But because of the terrible story written by Dan Gilroy, this film is just plain boring. Unless you are an avid sports better, I really do not see how anyone would find this film entertaining. Still there are a few scenes that stood out, such as when Brandon's leg was broken. My favorite scene though, had to be when he was urinated on by Novian (Armand Assante) for loosing a lot of his money. Unfortunately the few entertaining scenes in the film cannot make up for the total boredom of it all. If you really do not like McConaughey, and would like to see these horrible things happen to him, watch the movie. Otherwise, I would say you should pass on watching this film. Because when it was over, I felt much like Brandon after his encounter with Novian-- broken and humiliated.