I can’t say I’ve ever been a huge poker player myself, but I sure played a mean game of Uno when I was a kid. The players in Dead Money are a bit more advanced at card games than I was. Andy (Emile Hirsch) is a brilliant poker player who appears to be trying to pay off debt and make enough money to get his life with his girlfriend Chloe (India Eisley) on the right track. He spends his days traveling from one underground poker room to the next, each one filled with big money and big characters. Andy seems to be a bit out of place next to the others who he plays with, much like a raggedy sweater hanging next to a rack of tuxedos.
Andy also provides a voiceover narration in many spots, which sometimes gets taken over by the sound of a motivational tape that he listens to when psyching himself up for a game. You’ll hear plenty of great pep talks, such as, “You are a predator. A winner!”
When Andy’s opening game gets raided by a couple of masked gunmen who make off with everybody’s money, this sets off an entire series of unfortunate events which rattle along like a sawtoothed Rube Goldberg machine that threatens to eat everything in its path, one small bite at a time.
“…a brilliant poker player who appears to be trying to pay off debt …”
Hollywood legend David Keith plays the consummate mob boss, while Jackie Earle Haley brings his villain chops and applies them to the role of a killer with a stereotypical hillbilly personality. To add a bit of humor, Rory Culkin plays Jackie Earle Haley’s uncle. That’s right, a 30-something is the uncle of a 60-something. Don’t ask me!
Josh Wilcox’s screenplay is what might come about if the Coen Brothers wrote a movie around the game of poker. I wouldn’t say that Dead Money would quite be on the Coens’ level, but I could definitely see it as a film created by someone under their influence. The cinematography is easily above what you’d typically consider low budget, even pulling a brilliant Vertigo (zoom dolly) shot in the opening scene.
Dead Money’s cast (David Keith, Jackie Earle Haley, et al) may make you question if this is truly an indie movie. It’s also distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films, has a credit roll a mile long, and certainly looks high quality enough to be a Hollywood production. I couldn’t find info online about the actual production budget, but I’m guessing it’s far too high to be considered a low budget indie, and much more likely to be low budget in Hollywood terms. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped at least 5 million on it.
"…what if the Coen Brothers wrote a movie about poker?"
