Instant Favorite.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Four friends, Julian (Balthazar Getty), Audrey (Olivia Williams), Holly (Stacy Edwards), and Kevin (Daniel London), are recruited by bar owner Felix (Tim Curry) to steal a statuette from a wealthy Argentinian collector for crooked dealer, Mr. Ellington (Forrest Whittaker). Having successfully pinched the statuette and shipped it to America, the group's celebrations are interrupted by Ellington, who advises them that he has been informed that the statuette is not aboard the ship. Telling the group he will require $1 million compensation from them if it doesn't arrive or he will have them executed, Ellington later proceeds to have Felix bumped off to show he's not kidding. The frantic four, on discovering the statuette is indeed missing, hit on a bizarre plan whereby each will take out $1 million life insurance and one of them will kill the other – the deal being only the killer – who is determined by the draw of a card and a safety deposit key – will know who the intended victim is to be.This movie blew it for me in the first twenty minutes. Having pulled off an incredibly dull heist at a society wedding, we learn that the international art thieves recruited by Curry are in fact an insurance clerk, a shoe salesgirl, a barman, and a druggie, none of whom had ever stolen anything before. Yeah, right. Then, upon being told by Ellington that the statuette – which Curry wrapped in paper and left on top of a crate at the docks! – had gone missing, no-one had the sense to ask how he came by this information. But, hey, if they'd done that they might have resolved everything in the first half-hour, and then we wouldn't have been able to enjoy the 'brilliant' idea first-time writers Shawn David Thompson and William Quist dreamed up. The idea itself – the paranoia arising out of one of four people having to kill the other with only the killer knowing who the victim is to be – isn't a bad one, but is almost impossible to work into a movie without using some pretty tortuous plot devices to shoehorn it in. An experienced, quality writer might at least manage to entertain us anyway, but the script for this movie is pedestrian at best and downright bad most of the time. The characters are strictly one-dimensional, given no background whatsoever, and all come across as a bad lot who are simply getting what they deserve, so we don't care who the killer or the intended victim is. And, if they had behaved true to what minimal characterisation the writers have given them, they would all have high-tailed it the moment they discovered they weren't the killer and therefore had a one-in-three chance of being the victim. Even the supposed twist at the end comes as no real surprise.The only good things about this movie are old pro's Tim Curry and Forrest Whitaker (who must have both been short of decent offers back in 2000), but they're on screen for maybe fifteen minutes at the most. The rest of the cast are uniformly unmemorable which, unfortunately, this movie isn't going to be, because it's so bad it's going to keep coming back like a dodgy prawn supper. This is a dire film, whose only appropriate fate is to gather dust on the shelves of the nation's DVD rental outlets.Cool title, though.

1st watched 4/24/2005 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Paul Rachman): Interesting idea for a story, but a flawed execution hamper this movie from becoming a good watch from beginning to end. It begins with a heist of an expensive statue from an art collector in which the gang; comprised of 4 so-called friends and a professional thief(played by Tim Curry); are supposed to be handsomely rewarded when the object reaches it's destination. In the next 5 days, they meet the gangster(played by Forest Whitaker) who they need to pay-off if the statue is not received. The thief kills himself and they then begin to wonder if the statue will ever reach it's destination. In the midst of the uncertainty, they devise a plan so that at least 3 out of the 4 should get off scot-free, if all goes well, but the 4th will be dead and the rest will collect off his 1million dollar insurance policy(which is the amount the gangster needs if the statue doesn't get to it's destination). The problem of the movie is the predictability in which the characters are portrayed. Olivia Williams, who plays Audrey, is the most predictable and the least well-played. The others do an OK job, but their characters pretty much show us what their demise will be. Without giving away too much more, I'll leave it at this and let you decide if you want to watch the movie to see how it ends up. Not a bad movie, just a little too predictable.

There is no poker in this film first off. Actually everything you read on the back of the box is wrong. Top five worst movies I have seen in past 5 years. If you check my comment index I ususally don't review movies that I disliked....but for this I made an exception...next time I go to blockbuster and see this I am going to be very tempted on lighting the box on fire. It's that bad.

Based on R2 CDClever little story that begins with art heist and ends with twist, along the way it touches on love, friendship and betrayal. The four lead characters turn in decent performances with Balthazar Getty (Julian) being perhaps the strongest. Forest Whitaker is very good as the 'ruthless not cheap' Mr. Ellington.Avoid spoilers, the twist is worth the wait.7/10 well worth watching.