Do you remember as a kid seeing one of those rock tumblers? Maybe you saw it in a comic book or a friend had one? You'd put a rock in, it would spin around and after a while the rock would come out all smooth and polished and cool looking. Well, Player 5150 is like a rock that didn't spend enough time in the tumbler. Parts of it are smooth and polished, parts of it are rough and jagged and it doesn't seem to be all one thing. It is still a little cool to look at, however.
Joey (Ethan Embry) is a California stock broker who spends remarkably little time in the office. A little of that seems to be because the folks who made this movie didn't really understand what a stock broker does for a living, but mostly it's because Joey is what they used to call a "degenerate gambler". He doesn't feel alive unless he's got money riding on something, particularly sports. Joey has a beautiful wife named Ali (Kathleen Robertson) who's an important volunteer on the governor's re-election campaign. He's also got a bookie named Tony (Christopher McDonald) who works out of the kitchen of his restaurant with his ginormous thug Beno (Bob Sapp). Joey's also got a rich client named Nick (Bob Gunton) who, unbeknownst to Joey, is also a bookie. Nick is several steps up the criminal ladder from Tony, though.
This story basically takes place from a Friday to a Monday. Joey owes Tony $60,000 and places additional $10,000 bets on four football games. If he wins, he'll only owe Tony $20,000. If he loses well, I think you can guess whether or not Joey loses. That leaves him needing to come up with $100,000 by Monday or, and Tony is pretty clear on this, Joey's going to get hurt quite badly. There's also a college kid named Dwayne (Patrick Mapel) who only has until Monday to pay the $10,000 he owes Tony. Monday's important because that's when Tony has to pay back the money he owes to Nick, who also happens to be owed by the unhappy compulsive gambler married to the governor Ali works for. Nick squeezes Tony, who squeezes Joey and Dwayne, who scramble around trying to find a way to cover their losses. Everything eventually spins to a fairly decent ending, which is then capped off with a remarkably stupid dénouement.
Player 5150 isn't bad. It's got some nice acting, especially from Bob Gunton, Christopher McDonald and Kathleen Robertson. There's a scene where Ali has discovered some of the ugly secrets of her husband's life and Robertson does an affecting job of conveying Ali's conflicting emotions without having a single line of dialog. It also helps that Robertson is truly stunning, the sort of woman that men used to carve into stone because they couldn't bear the thought of her beauty ever fading.
The film also sets up a interesting dynamic where characters mirror each other. Tony plays tough guy with Dwayne, threatening him and roughing him up. We also see Dwayne as the bookie for another college student who owes him money, doing a cruder, less capable version of the same act. And Nick does an even sharper, more menacing version of the same thing when he pressures Tony to pay his debt.
But after making it seem like the story was going to say something about the nature of gambling and gamblers, this movie fritters it all away for a melodramatic turn into a relationship drama. The various subplots come together in a too pat and disappointing fashion to serve the big question of whether Joey and Ali will end up together after going through hell. It's not at all what you'd expect from watching the first half of the film, and I don't mean that in a good way.
There's also too much extraneous stuff here. There's a character who pops up to have one conversation with Joey, disappears, the shows up again toward the end playing a pretty significant role as apparently Joey's best friend. I'm not sure that part was at all necessary. I know the story didn't need to have girlfriend for Tony. Maybe they just wrote her in because they got Kelly Carlson from Nip/Tuck to be the movie, but she doesn't serve any purpose. Player 5150 also makes way too spotty use of narration. There's a bit at the beginning, nothing for 50 minutes, a bunch of narration to paper over a montage, nothing for another 30 minutes, then finishes up with another blast of voice over. I'm also not sure why Joey's gambling is established as thrill seeking behavior at first, then morphed without explanation into a self-loathing, self-destructive impulse. And it seems like half of the subplot with the governor's wife was cut out of the script and what was left didn't have much of a point.
This film is like a journey where you have an okay time getting where you're going, but when you arrive you realize you haven't gotten anywhere. It's not a bad way to spend some time as long as there's nothing better to do.
Joey (Ethan Embry) is a California stock broker who spends remarkably little time in the office. A little of that seems to be because the folks who made this movie didn't really understand what a stock broker does for a living, but mostly it's because Joey is what they used to call a "degenerate gambler". He doesn't feel alive unless he's got money riding on something, particularly sports. Joey has a beautiful wife named Ali (Kathleen Robertson) who's an important volunteer on the governor's re-election campaign. He's also got a bookie named Tony (Christopher McDonald) who works out of the kitchen of his restaurant with his ginormous thug Beno (Bob Sapp). Joey's also got a rich client named Nick (Bob Gunton) who, unbeknownst to Joey, is also a bookie. Nick is several steps up the criminal ladder from Tony, though.
This story basically takes place from a Friday to a Monday. Joey owes Tony $60,000 and places additional $10,000 bets on four football games. If he wins, he'll only owe Tony $20,000. If he loses well, I think you can guess whether or not Joey loses. That leaves him needing to come up with $100,000 by Monday or, and Tony is pretty clear on this, Joey's going to get hurt quite badly. There's also a college kid named Dwayne (Patrick Mapel) who only has until Monday to pay the $10,000 he owes Tony. Monday's important because that's when Tony has to pay back the money he owes to Nick, who also happens to be owed by the unhappy compulsive gambler married to the governor Ali works for. Nick squeezes Tony, who squeezes Joey and Dwayne, who scramble around trying to find a way to cover their losses. Everything eventually spins to a fairly decent ending, which is then capped off with a remarkably stupid dénouement.
Player 5150 isn't bad. It's got some nice acting, especially from Bob Gunton, Christopher McDonald and Kathleen Robertson. There's a scene where Ali has discovered some of the ugly secrets of her husband's life and Robertson does an affecting job of conveying Ali's conflicting emotions without having a single line of dialog. It also helps that Robertson is truly stunning, the sort of woman that men used to carve into stone because they couldn't bear the thought of her beauty ever fading.
The film also sets up a interesting dynamic where characters mirror each other. Tony plays tough guy with Dwayne, threatening him and roughing him up. We also see Dwayne as the bookie for another college student who owes him money, doing a cruder, less capable version of the same act. And Nick does an even sharper, more menacing version of the same thing when he pressures Tony to pay his debt.
But after making it seem like the story was going to say something about the nature of gambling and gamblers, this movie fritters it all away for a melodramatic turn into a relationship drama. The various subplots come together in a too pat and disappointing fashion to serve the big question of whether Joey and Ali will end up together after going through hell. It's not at all what you'd expect from watching the first half of the film, and I don't mean that in a good way.
There's also too much extraneous stuff here. There's a character who pops up to have one conversation with Joey, disappears, the shows up again toward the end playing a pretty significant role as apparently Joey's best friend. I'm not sure that part was at all necessary. I know the story didn't need to have girlfriend for Tony. Maybe they just wrote her in because they got Kelly Carlson from Nip/Tuck to be the movie, but she doesn't serve any purpose. Player 5150 also makes way too spotty use of narration. There's a bit at the beginning, nothing for 50 minutes, a bunch of narration to paper over a montage, nothing for another 30 minutes, then finishes up with another blast of voice over. I'm also not sure why Joey's gambling is established as thrill seeking behavior at first, then morphed without explanation into a self-loathing, self-destructive impulse. And it seems like half of the subplot with the governor's wife was cut out of the script and what was left didn't have much of a point.
This film is like a journey where you have an okay time getting where you're going, but when you arrive you realize you haven't gotten anywhere. It's not a bad way to spend some time as long as there's nothing better to do.