Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

rodney_bickersteth I watched this movie with my mother and loved it. I recently taped it because of the outstanding job that it did in addressing a serious issue. In this movie Laura Bancroft's life began to spiral dangerously out of control due to a severe addiction to gambling. When she started neglecting her husband and her kids to gamble she was just an addict. When she resorted to stealing to bankroll her habit she became a full blown junkie. It seemed that as the movie progressed her problem only got worse. In the end gambling not only destroyed her life but the lives of everyone around her. It just goes to show just how destructive any kind of addiction can be.

sol1218 (There are Spoilers) Hard hitting made for TV movie about how an addiction can not only destroy the person addicted but everyone and everything that he or she touches.Having just moved from Florida to Reno Nevada Laura Bancroft, Delta Burke, had everything going for her in being the top fund-raiser at her new job managing the Juvenile Chronic Illness Foundation. It was when Laura innocently stepped into a local Reno casino to see how things are going on there that she stepped into hell. A hell that in the end would lead Laura to not only loses her savings home job and even family but her freedom. In her desperate attempt to have action on the casino's slot machines Laura even embezzled the foundation that she headed that was to help infirmed and disabled children!We get to see Laura slowly descend into "Gambling Hell" as, like most people who get addicted to gambling, she suffers an acute case of "Biginners Luck". Running up a winning streak at the casino Laura feels that she somehow found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that she was looking for all her life. As her luck started to turn Laura instead of walking away from the one armed bandits, slot machines, went full-tilt and her bank account quickly reached zero.Trying to keep her addiction, as well as the dwindling family bank account, from her hard working husband Jim, Gerald McRaney, and daughter and son Jennifer, Ellen Page, and Tommy,Matthew Haubour, Laura started to suffer from panic attacks in their finding out the truth about her secret life. With Laura not being about to do both her job as a fund-raiser and mother both her professional and home-keeper careers went to pot along with her.Always blaming everyone else for her addiction even the sweet and elderly women Bella-Joyce Gordon-who introduced Laura to the slots, not realizing what a additive person she is, Laura ran out of people to blame for her own problems when they, those whom she tried to blamed, ran out on her.Poor Jim breaking his back working two shifts at the local taxi garage as a grease monkey was lied to and even humiliated, in what a loser he is, by an out of control Laura who treated the hard working man worst then a piece of garbage. A deranged and feeling high on the hog Laura after hitting a $50,000.00 jackpot at the casino, which she lost the very next day, not only had Jim thrown out of his own house but had both Jennifer and Tommy, knowing that their mom is quickly losing it, leave as well.With everything closing in on her and facing jail and disgrace Laura looking for a way out of the mess that she and only she put herself into choose to do herself in via carbon monoxide poisoning. It was at that time in her garage, with Laura's car fumes about to suffocate her, that Laura finally saw the light and realized that running away from her demons, gambling, will only make things worst for those she'll leave behind. It was there and then that Laura decided to both face the music, in embezzling the foundation she ran, and also do something to cure her from her gambling addiction! Laura decided to come clean with what she did at her job and also go to GA, Gamblers Anonymous, and get her and her family's, because of her addiction, totally destroyed lives back together again.P.S Because of what gambling did to Laura Bancroft, as well as thousands of other helpless and addicted gamblers, legislation was passed to post telephone numbers of addicted gamblers self-help groups,like Gambling Anonymous,at gambling establishments like casinos or off track betting houses for anyone who seeks help. Something that wasn't around when Laura Bancroft lost control and went under when she went on the road to financial and personal destruction depicted in the movie "Going for Broke".

blanche-2 Delta Burke plays a compulsive gambler, and Gerald McRaney her husband, as in real life, in "Going for Broke." The film shows the step by step deterioration of a woman's life when she starts betting at the local casino. She borrows from the foundation for which she works, borrows from family, and eventually gambles the grocery money. Even when she wins, she loses, because she can't stop.The story holds one's interest and one can't help but feel sorry and frustrated for the character as she digs herself in deeper and deeper, neglecting her children, husband, and job. The story is extra sad because, of course, this happens to people every day due to one addiction or another.Burke, McRaney, and the rest of the cast do an impressive job.

MimiAnn Splendid acting by all of the characters. Outstanding illustration of the consequences of compulsive gambling. Gambling must be viewed as entertainment, not as a means to earn money and to "win back what you have lost." It is easy to see how you can get seduced into the artificial atmosphere of the casino, and even more so how you can lose track of time at the slot machines, therefore neglecting your obligations, like how Laura put her children's lives in danger several times. This movie serves as a warning to how anyone can wake up one morning and discover that everything is lost due to gambling addiction. If just one person's life is turned around as a result of this excellent movie, if just one person decides to receive help, it is worth it.