High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story
Also known as Stuey

This came on Showtime the other night. I was really looking forward to it, and planned my evening's goings-on around it. Jason has the Stu Ungar bio, and I'm interested in this guy's past. But ya know what? I sat through thirty minutes of it before finally resigning myself to the fact it was an overly stylized melodramatic stinkin' piece of crapola. So I changed the channel.

It's got a great cast, including Michael Imperioli (as Stu Ungar) and Steve Schirripa, both from The Sopranos. But a great cast can only be as good as the director allows them to be.

Granted, I only gave it thirty minutes and it very well could have turned out to be a good movie, but I just couldn't force myself to sit there any longer. There was too much overacting with ridiculous "artsy noir" scenes. I get the distinct impression that the director pulled everyone aside before filming each morning and said, "All right team, let's really ham it up today! Drag out those long silences, exaggerate every facial movement, swing your arm at least three feet each time you hit someone, and by all means, hold your cigarette so the camera guy can capture the smoke slowly rising up out of the shadows in front of your right cheekbone!"

If anyone else has the chutzpah to sit through the whole thing, please tell me if it gets any better.