Connianatu
How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.
FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
RResende
This is a pretty safe and unremarkable project in many regards. The story is appealing as a sort of funny anti-hero, a resourceful guy with an uncontrolled urge to gamble. He steals so he can feed is habit, and everybody around him has money-related interests except himself. It's made more interesting to follow because it's based on a real story, and apparently it follows it quite closely.Technically it's as good as most of Hollywood makes, competent in every aspect except direction, which is flat and dead. No defined camera stance, merely the basic representation of what's happening.But nothing of that matters because who the camera frames almost always is the late Seymour Hoffman. And that is more than enough. Every movement counts, every restrained facial sign shows something. He was really a method student, but i suspect he didn't have to search very deep to get to his characters. His most remarkable characters all live in their own world, tormented by uncontrolled urges, in pain by maladjustment to an unforgiving unfit world. His pain was real in every character of his, he just channeled it each time to a different character, to a different world, to a different misfit quirky corner of the world. It's an extra pain to watch each one of his movies now, when we know we won't see anything new from him ever again, and we understand that not so much of what he showed us was acting, faking on a stage, but instead was the masking of a real pain. Or it could be the other way around. It could be that, in a tragic sense, the high standard that Hoffman proposed for his own craft drained and exhausted the real man so much that he was left in the limbo between his full creations and the emptiness of the somehow unfulfilled real life, whatever that might be.It's not difficult to watch this film now, and map the gambling urge of Mahowny to the addictions of Hoffman in the real life, and understand that the "just a few more minutes" could in fact be the few more minutes he always requested from himself.watch this, the film won't change you, but Philip S. Hoffman will.
Woodyanders
Seemingly ordinary zhlub bank executive Dan Mahowny (superbly played with remarkable restraint and precision by Philip Seymour Hoffman) uses his access to other people's bank accounts to finance his compulsive gambling habit. Mahowny puts himself in great jeopardy when he uses his illegally acquired cash to embark on all or nothing gambling sprees in Atlantic City.Director Richard Kwietniowski offers a fascinatingly vivid and sordid evocation of a glittery, yet shadowy neon netherworld governed by greed and populated by shady types who are out to make a fast buck by any means necessary. The central character of Dan Mahowny makes for a compelling tragic figure: With his frumpy suits, beat-up jalopy of a car, and forever calm external demeanor, Mahowny clearly only cares about gambling and the thrill of putting it all on the line. Moreover, there's something morbidly arresting (and wickedly funny) about watching this doomed fanatic dig his own grave and jump in it feet first. Maurice Chauvet's exceptionally well constructed script ensures that each and every scene adds up and keeps the narrative moving inexorably towards in unavoidable, but still poignant downbeat ending. While Hoffman clearly dominates the film with his marvelously understated portrayal, he nonetheless receives sterling support from Minnie Driver as Mahowny's loyal, but worried fiancé Belinda, John Hurt as sleazy and amoral casino manager Victor Foss, who's sole concern is bilking Mahowny for every last dime he can get; Maury Chayin as fed-up and irascible bookie Frank Perlin, Ian Tracey as the dogged Detective Ben Lock, Sonja Smits as distraught client Dana Selkirk, and K.C. Collins as friendly bellboy Bernie. Kudos are also in order for the glossy cinematography by Oliver Curtis and the moody jazz score by The Insects and Richard Grassby-Lewis. Highly recommended.
Robyn Nesbitt (nesfilmreviews)
What transcends and carries this true story of the largest bank fraud case in Canadian history is the phenomenal central performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Dan Mahowny (Hoffman) is a bank manager with a serious gambling problem. With his position, he has access to a multi- million dollar account witch ultimately leads to him gambling $10 million dollars in a span of 18 months. The main focus of the screenplay is Mahowny's obsession and compulsion and it's devastating effects professionally and personally. It's Hoffman's ability to reveal to us that beneath his all consuming addiction lies a descent, desperate soul.
agathaholmes
One of the joys of watching Philip Seymour Hoffman is to see what he does with very small facial movements. The reining in of these facial expressions adds much to the tension of the movie. In contrast with "amateur" actors who go over the top in order to present the moviegoer with their characters, Hoffman goes in the opposite direction and forces us to pay attention to the smallest of details in his behavior. Minnie Driver is almost hidden by makeup and wig in her role as the long-suffering girlfriend. (A good thing.) John Hurt gives yet another interesting performance as the casino owner who is totally intrigued with the addicted gambler (Hoffman), getting much glee out of watching a man who MUST keep playing the game.
