Plot: Tech billionaire and gambler Jake Foley (Crowe) hosts a high-stakes poker game between childhood friends, offering them the chance to win more money than they’ve ever dreamed of. The evening takes a turn when he unveils his elaborate plan seeking revenge for their betrayals and to play, they’ll have to give up the one thing they’ve spent their lives trying to keep…their secrets. As the game unfolds, thieves break in and they must band together to survive a night of terror.
Review: Russell Crowe is a movie star. There is no question about the actor’s abilities on screen whether it be in marquee dramas like A Beautiful Mind, action epics like Gladiator, or period pieces like Cinderella Man. In recent years, Crowe has performed in projects that appeal to him ranging from pulpy flicks like Unhinged or superhero fare including Man of Steel and Thor: Love and Thunder.
Review: Russell Crowe is a movie star. There is no question about the actor’s abilities on screen whether it be in marquee dramas like A Beautiful Mind, action epics like Gladiator, or period pieces like Cinderella Man. In recent years, Crowe has performed in projects that appeal to him ranging from pulpy flicks like Unhinged or superhero fare including Man of Steel and Thor: Love and Thunder.
- 11/24/2022
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
When you hear the phrase “poker face,” you might get a certain pop song stuck in your head, or you might conjure up an image of stoicism, unreadability — the kind of expression that helps a gambler take home the pot.
Russell Crowe is adept at such masculine impassiveness. Even when bellowing about revenge as Javert in “Les Misérables” or coming undone in “A Beautiful Mind,” he has a solidness to him. Unfortunately, while solidity can be beneficial — as in dependable, trusty — it can also be boring. Such is the downfall of “Poker Face,” a new feature written and directed by, and starring, Crowe.
Crowe’s first screenplay, from a story by Stephen M. Coates, follows Jake Foley (Crowe), an Aussie rogue who, along with his best friend Andrew (played by RZA), leveraged his teenage poker skills into the first online poker enterprise. As a result, Jake is insanely wealthy. After...
Russell Crowe is adept at such masculine impassiveness. Even when bellowing about revenge as Javert in “Les Misérables” or coming undone in “A Beautiful Mind,” he has a solidness to him. Unfortunately, while solidity can be beneficial — as in dependable, trusty — it can also be boring. Such is the downfall of “Poker Face,” a new feature written and directed by, and starring, Crowe.
Crowe’s first screenplay, from a story by Stephen M. Coates, follows Jake Foley (Crowe), an Aussie rogue who, along with his best friend Andrew (played by RZA), leveraged his teenage poker skills into the first online poker enterprise. As a result, Jake is insanely wealthy. After...
- 11/17/2022
- by Lena Wilson
- The Wrap
One of Russell Crowe’s greatest strengths as a movie star is his ability to make it look easy. When he’s at his best, it often looks like he’s barely trying. Whether it be heroic vengeance (Gladiator), bold leadership (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), unhinged––ahem––madness (Unhinged), or anything in between, he appears incredibly comfortable. When Crowe is in the director’s chair, he seems to be trying a bit too hard. At least so far. Poker Face––marking his first screenplay credit and second directorial feature following The Water Diviner in 2015––is a lot of things at once.
Crowe plays Jake Foley, a billionaire who got rich after he developed tech for early online poker that then got repurposed for military use. A sepia-toned flashback leads into an extended shamanic drug trip that seems to clarify a few moral quandaries for Jake,...
Crowe plays Jake Foley, a billionaire who got rich after he developed tech for early online poker that then got repurposed for military use. A sepia-toned flashback leads into an extended shamanic drug trip that seems to clarify a few moral quandaries for Jake,...
- 11/16/2022
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
The title “Poker Face” suggests a droll, methodical cunning that unfortunately proves elusive everywhere else in Russell Crowe’s sophomore effort as writer-director. As handsomely produced as his first, 2014’s historical drama “The Water Diviner,” it offers an even more overstuffed narrative whose myriad elements barely have time to register before we arrive at a nearly 10-minute end credits crawl. This Australia-shot mix of intrigue, soap opera, thriller and tearjerker never quite gels, despite enough surface gloss and cast expertise to hold attention. Screen Media is releasing theatrically to a couple dozen U.S. screens this week and to digital formats on Nov. 22, with other territories following.
A prologue finds our protagonists as teenage besties in what looks like the late 1970s: five rural Aussie lads already obsessed with poker. After a swim in an idyllic quarry, they’re challenged to a game by a local bully, who naturally is enraged by his loss.
A prologue finds our protagonists as teenage besties in what looks like the late 1970s: five rural Aussie lads already obsessed with poker. After a swim in an idyllic quarry, they’re challenged to a game by a local bully, who naturally is enraged by his loss.
- 11/15/2022
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Stars: Allison Williams, Logan Browning, Alaina Huffman, Steven Weber, Molly Grace, Graeme Duffy, Mark Kandborg, Winnie Hung, Glynis Davies, Eileen Tian, Christina Jastrzembska | Written by Eric C. Charmelo, Richard Shepard, Nicole Snyder | Directed by Richard Shepard
The Perfection is directed by Richard Shepard and stars Allison Williams and Logan Browning as Charlotte and Lizzie, two classic musically trained prodigies who – on a chance meeting at a musical exhibition held by the benefactors of each girl, both of whom are showing off their latest star pupil – become entangled in each other’s talent. Together they slowly bond with deadly morally ambiguous intent.
Richard Shepard’s film is a thrilling haunting blast from its eerie start to its diabolically horrid and splendid climax. Splitting itself into chapters – in a similar style implemented by Tarantino in his filmography – and structuring itself into a series of five individual parts with aptly provided titles. The...
The Perfection is directed by Richard Shepard and stars Allison Williams and Logan Browning as Charlotte and Lizzie, two classic musically trained prodigies who – on a chance meeting at a musical exhibition held by the benefactors of each girl, both of whom are showing off their latest star pupil – become entangled in each other’s talent. Together they slowly bond with deadly morally ambiguous intent.
Richard Shepard’s film is a thrilling haunting blast from its eerie start to its diabolically horrid and splendid climax. Splitting itself into chapters – in a similar style implemented by Tarantino in his filmography – and structuring itself into a series of five individual parts with aptly provided titles. The...
- 6/17/2019
- by Jak-Luke Sharp
- Nerdly
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