The Poker Club (2008/Sony DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: C
Loaded
with more clichés than a bad game of 52 pick up, Tim McCann’s The Poker Club is a really bad tale of
card playing and murder that is more interested in being hip than having any
suspense or adding up to anything.
Johnathon Schaech leads the cast as the host of the game that goes wrong
when a burglar (of all people) invades their fun and all hell breaks loose.
Though
the cast is clearly trying, they fight a loosing battle (or is that hand) in a
script Schaech actually co-wrote with Richard Chizmar from the Ed Gorman book
that I expect had to have worked better than this does here. Yes, poker and card playing are enjoying a new
height of popularity, but does the film have to be so flat? Even when it does not work, the actors still
give it there all to keep it going, but this house of cards soon bottoms out.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was shot in HD, has all kinds of motion
blur issues, detail issues and a look that is more like a soap opera than
anything else. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is doing
its best to circulate a recording that is dialogue-based and clearly not
conceived for multi-channel sound. The
only extra is an audio commentary by McCann and Schaech.
- Nicholas Sheffo
