Mjeteconer Just perfect...

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

hughdavey Even Bruce Willis couldn't save this masterpiece. The first half was pretty bad, but then something happened: it got worse. It was like a soft core 'Showgirls' but without the character development, tension, drama and humor. I was going to give it a 1, but I kept thinking about Laura Prepon sunning herself and I gave it a 2. Call me generous.

Adam Peters (11%) A limp waste of both man's and the world's resources who's cinematic release came and quickly vanished away before the glue that stuck the lame and cheap looking advertising posters had even properly dried. This is one of those films that starts OK with hope of things yet to come, but any hope here is badly misplaced. Rebecca Hall plays a ditzy, quite annoying stripper who becomes a Las Vegas high rolling pro gambler within the blink of an eye utilising her Rain man style abilities that are mentioned once and never spoken of ever again. It really is amazing how easy it is to get a well paying job in this movie, so much so that in this universe there's no such thing as poverty and everyone retires at 22. Bruce Willis plays the boss of a group of gambling speculators, and even he managers to annoy with his character who doesn't seem to accept that betting on anything is massively risky and requires nothing more than blind luck to succeed. While Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joshua Jackson are hardly featured and play mostly pointless roles anyway. Overall this managers to be both mundane, dry, and strait-laced, yet still a bit of a mess.

Ed-Shullivan Lay the Favorite ends on a happy note, but as statistics prove over and over again there are more broke and desolate people as a result of addictive gambling than there are happy winners. I enjoyed the solid acting in Lay the Favorite, and there was a Disney like theme involved, but some of the movie content is for an adult only audience. The movie revolves around a young ambitious girl named Beth (played by Rebecca Hall), who is trying to find a job that will fulfill her as a person and that excites her. Making house calls with her boom box and stripping for strange men just does not fill that void for Rebecca so she moves out to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. Through a few chance meetings she ends up working for a private bookmaker who bets only on himself and whose name is Dink Heimowitz (played by Bruce Willis). Dink is assisted by two of his cronies and a few female runners who lay his bets off for him with the Vegas bookmakers. Dink decides to hire Beth as one of his bet runners because she is young, bright, good with numbers, and initially brings Dink some good luck. Dink has a beautiful wife (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) who does not appreciate the young bet runners that Dink prefers to hire and she lets Dink and the girls know to stay clear of her man. One of the other big gamblers who aspires to run his own bookmaking ring is a guy named Rosie (played by Vince Vaughn). Dink will deal with Rosie but he doesn't trust him because he believes all gamblers are only looking out for themselves.I did enjoy the movie, but I felt it provides an unrealistic view of the life of the heavy bettor. Lay the Favorite portrays Dink and Rosie as two bookies who always seem to come out on top, and have no worries in the world. Although this is a comedy so it is not to be taken seriously I have a soft spot for gamblers as I have seen too many fall in to despair and a life long rut of quiet losses and sudden hibernation until they come in to a bit of money again so they can get back on the cycle of gambling for another run. Beth eventually leaves Dink's employment and she also leaves her down to earth boyfriend Jeremy from New York (played by Joshua Jackson) and goes to work for Rosie on a sunny island. Beth quickly learns that Rosie is not a very nice man and that Rosie is who Dink said he was. Beth realizes that she needs to get back to New York and help her boyfriend Jeremy out of any potential criminal charges related to the gambling book that she asked Jeremy to oversee while she worked with Rosie on the islands.The movie ends with a lot of lives having to rely on the outcome of a basketball game. This is by no means a Disney movie but it may as well have been since the movie's ending had everyone involved in a love fest. Heavy gambling as outlined in Lay the Favorite should not be portrayed with characters as nice and clean as in this movie feature, because this is not reality. Gambling has negatively affected too many people's lives and their extended families lives as well. There is a good Disney message with the underdogs attaining victory in this movie but keep it real folks, gambling is an addiction and an illness which calls out for a cure, not a romantic comedy.

Danielle If you can get through the excruciating first half of this movie, it's fairly entertaining. The first 45 minutes are confusing and dull as hell, and I almost turned it off (watching on DVD) because I just didn't care about the people or the events unfolding. How can you set a movie in Vegas, and have this amazing cast, and end up with such a mediocre result? It's based on a memoir that, by all accounts, is funny and extremely entertaining, but something clearly has been lost during the translation to the screen. The second half is better - it comes together, the characters become a bit more multi-dimensional, and there finally seems to be some point. But overall, this movie is a wasted opportunity and it's greatest value may be for insomniacs.