The lock of the year for the sports betting fan

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2007)

We all know the sales pitches: some guy with a 900 number tells you he's hitting 82 percent on the year, and you can have his picks for this weekend for one "low" price (compared to what you win!). He'll even give you a free game to get you started, and if that game doesn't win, he'll call the guy he gave the other side to and sign him up instead.
Two For The Money sanitized the sports **touting** industry (what this film is really about), and it glorified, by portraying as successful, what is at best a guy who had a winning year or two, something bound to happen when your phone banks have fifty guys.
This film is based on a very true story, with the names and backstories only slightly changed. The "quarterback" Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughy) is based on someone certainly never known much as one, but who may have played the game. Not that this matters, as your tout customers don't care about your life story, only if you can win for them, and Lang delivers through his Vegas-based 900 number.
New York tout king Walter Abrams, played in deliciously over-the-top fashion by Al Pacino, brings the over-the-top nature of the industry to life, not only the touts who make misleading claims (13-2 the last 15 means nothing and they don't tell you about the 2-13), but also the customers who demand the moon of guaranteed riches for a small fee. Renee Russo (Toni) gives her usually lame performance, like a double-digit NFL favorite mailing in a last-minute field goal to win.
As a "public handicapper" (I do horses and I make no guarantees), I quickly found the film engaging, particularly its correct focus on how Lang handles the pressure of risking other people's money through his picks. Scam artist or not, any tout always wants his clients to win, because they will gladly pay him well and he'll know he's earned it. It's when the bad times come that the tout's world becomes a living hell, knowing he just sent his followers into the poorhouse, even though that's because they were risking too much to begin with.
The other theme in the film is how Walter Abrams is always looking ahead to next Sunday as if he were just dropped out of the womb and nothing bad had ever happened to him. He knows that even the guys who curse him out will send him money again, and he will win again, sometimes, someday, hopefully, and at 1;00 every Sunday in the fall, the circus will start anew with him front and center, his business acumen saving him from his darker and more expensive urges. Sure, he's living on the edge, but he wouldn't have it any other way, because more than anything else, Walter Abrams was addicted to the thrills, while Brandon Lang was just looking for a job. The contrast is phenomenal and striking.