Poker Face (2022) Review!!

Synopsis – Crowe plays Jake, a tech billionaire who gathers his childhood friends to his Miami estate for what turns into a high stakes game of poker. Those friends have a love hate relationship with the host, a master game-player/planner, and he has concocted an elaborate scheme designed to bring a certain justice to all of them. However, Jake finds himself re-thinking his strategy when his Miami mansion is overtaken by a dangerous home invader.

My Take – Known for his iconic roles like the Oscar winning Gladiator (2000), dramas like A Beautiful Mind (2001) and The Next Three Days (2010), and period pieces like Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Cinderella Man (2005), Robin Hood (2010) among many others, Russell Crowe is, without a doubt, one of the few film stars left.

Though he isn’t the box-office attraction he once was, and in recent years has mainly appeared in films that appeal to him ranging from pulpy flicks like The Nice Guys (2016) and Unhinged (2020) to superhero fare like Man of Steel (2013) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), his fandom remains intact.

Hence, it came as exciting news when it was announced that the New Zealand-born Oscar winner was going to once again exercise his talents behind the camera following his absolutely spectacular debut, The Water Diviner (2014). Unfortunately, while Russell Crowe is big, brash, and always entertaining to watch, his sophomore directorial effort, which he also wrote, is an unremarkable and frustrating shallow endeavor.

In actuality, Crowe replaced Gary Fleder (Homefront) as the director about five weeks from shooting, with barely anyone else cast, and also ended up re-writing the script that is centered on a puzzling premise. However, what actually shocks is the puzzling execution of the same. Not quite a poker film and not quite a thriller, the film falls somewhere between a psychological drama and a heist flick.

With elements cobbled from all sorts of genres, the film abruptly just switches from emotional melodrama to a twisty nail-biter, without ever feeling authentic or organic to the plot. Let alone the bizarre continuity questions that raise doubts as to just how invested was everyone in making this film?

To director Crowe’s credit, he throws out some clever ideas and opens up a number of compelling themes, but there is no denying that the film is just blandly written, blandly performed, and blandly directed film with no takeaways. But most importantly, how was Liam Hemsworth (a 32 year old) cast as a childhood friend of Crowe (a 58 year old)?

The story follows Jake Foley (Russell Crowe), a 57 year-old tech tycoon and seasoned gambler, who became a billionaire by not only developing the first successful online poker system but by adapting it into a military-grade surveillance program along with his best friend / business partner Andrew Johnson (RZA). Now dying of cancer, Foley decides to have one last high-stakes poker game with his old friends – Alex (Aden Young), a successful author; Paul (Steve Bastoni), a government official; Mike (Liam Hemsworth), who’s struggling with addiction, and his own lawyer, Sam McIntyre (Daniel MacPherson).

He offers his friends a choice; they can each take an expensive car or gamble this expensive gift for a bigger prize; namely $5 million dollars each. They’re each harboring secrets and there is much tension to be resolved, but as the night progresses and betrayals are unearthed, things take a turn for the worse when a band of thieves led by Paul’s older brother, the ruthless and unhinged Victor (Paul Tassone), break into the house with the intent of stealing some of Jake’s valuable artwork and a grudge. Forcing Jake and his friends to band together if they are all to survive the night.

This is one of those films that takes an unbelievably long time to getting going; this isn’t an issue in and of itself if the film impresses once it gets to the crux of the story. Sadly that doesn’t happen here. The script, written by Crowe and Stephen M. Coates (John Doe: Vigilante) takes its own time to get down to business.

Much of the first half hour is spent watching Jake tripping under a shaman’s guidance which provides some nice artsy images as well as filling us in on whatever backstory Jake’s voice overs didn’t.

Clocking in at just about 95 minutes, the film takes almost half of its running time getting to the card game and then abandons it to focus on the heist and standoff in the final act. All the way leaving us to understand the script full of gaping holes and head-scratching shortcuts. Too often the film bolts from one place to another, leaving out what feels like critical details and skipping over opportunities to flesh out its story more.

The film is meant to show us the unbreakable power of friendship, but contains practically non-existent character development making it hard to invest in anyone or anything we say. Crowe’s direction is efficient at best, intrusive at worst. He uses flashbacks and cross-cutting to a wearying degree, interrupting his own narrative. He slams music over anything heightened, when he doesn’t need to. None of this really matters if you’re grooving with the plot, but that’s a big if. The film is too jumbled in its storytelling approach to simply settle in and let the world surround us.

Performance wise, Russell Crowe is consistently invested and brings a weight-of-the-old weariness to his role. Liam Hemsworth seems to be giving all to his miscast role and Elsa Pataky is a short welcome sight. Sadly, the rest of the cast from RZA, Aden Young, Jack Thompson, Steve Bastoni, and Daniel MacPherson to Brooke Satchwell and Molly Grace just seem lost. Above of them all, Paul Tassone’s over-the-top theatrics border on cartoonish. On the whole, ‘Poker Face’ is an uneven and jarring thriller that is a clumsy mess from beginning to end.