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Pacino, McConaughey fall just out of the 'Money'
Walter Abrams (Al Pacino) and Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey)
Universal Pictures
Director: D. J. Caruso
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Al Pacino, Rene Russo
MPAA rating: R for pervasive language, a scene of sexuality and a violent act
Jane Fonda was still big box office when she and Kris Kristofferson had a flop in "Rollover" (1981). It concerned an Arab oil company's attempt to manipulate the world stock market. Most of us had no way of discerning what was going on in key sequences and had to settle for observing the leading actors' reactions.
The alphabetically like-titled "Rollerball" (1975) involved a futuristic sport that combined elements of roller derby and hockey. The film's skaters invented game rules to enact while shooting action sequences, but there was no way for the audience to become involved in a nonexistent sport that wasn't explained.
Something like that happens in "Two for the Money," a likable, if sometimes puzzling, movie written by Dan Gilroy and directed very capably by D.J. Caruso.
Abandoned by his sports-crazed father before turning 10, Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) grows up with a kid brother and a mother who works two jobs.
Brandon is a promising pro quarterback until an injured knee knocks him off the field for six years, by which time his vulnerability to re-injury reduces any chances of a comeback.
He's fielding sports-betting calls on a 900 number in Las Vegas when he's wooed by the manic Walter Abrams (Al Pacino) to join Walter's comparable New York City-based betting service.
When you're the hotshot being courted, you don't necessarily concern yourself with the downsides of a pressure cooker like Walter's operation.
Brandon immediately supersedes the arrogant Jerry (Jeremy Piven) as Walter's favorite handicapper and "salesman."
Predictably enough, Brandon receives the approval of Walter's mature wife Toni (Rene Russo, who doubles as executive producer -- unusual in a picture that stars the two guys).
For a while the new guy can do little wrong. Not only are Brandon's picks 75 percent accurate, then 80, 82 and even higher, but Walter receives a call from the world's biggest gambler and most coveted client, the Puerto Rican Novian (Armand Assante).
So far so good, sorta.
No movie has taken us into the chambers of sports betting so intimately. Scenes of Walter coaching Brandon in salesmanship -- in the manipulation of compulsive gamblers -- are fascinating. There's gold in the urgency of a buy-my-advice-or-stop-wasting-my-time pitch.
"Two for the Money" tinkers with the surrogate father-son mentoring and the fear of rejection. It flirts with themes of addiction and self-destructiveness, from smoking to the compulsion to lose.
But it shortchanges us by providing only a fleeting analysis of Brandon's skill -- something about watching games and factoring in a recent injury of a single player.
They're a lively lot, though: McConaughey tempering Brandon's conceit to luxuriate in the role of valued protege; Russo as a seasoned beauty determined to play nurturing earth mother; Pacino as another of his seductive eccentrics -- dazzling everyone with energy, commitment and certainty.
"Two for the Money" may need smoothing, but for a film that prizes dialogue and relationships over action, it's unusually visceral.
