Cincinatti Kid

I saw this in the theatre when I was a teen and haven't seen it since, till tonight. I thought it was great in 1965 and tonight it was one of the worst poker movies I've seen. One dimensional charactors and little card playing. And what playing there was, it was all about who had the best hand, not bluffing or tells or figuring out what the other guy has. Steve McQueen wants to be the 'Man', tries to beat the real Man, and loses to a straight flush. Movie over. I sat there going "HUH?" Thats it? What a waste of time.

That's funny, I have reviewed this lately here and was saying it was pretty good. I guess I liked the poker better, the final scene to me came down do the "check then raise" tactic being shown, usually just called "check-raise" [banned in our local friendly game btw]

It in fact is: 'A' checks then 'B' makes a modest bet. Then after 'A' raises dramatically, this being the classic "check- raise", 'B' re-raises to put 'A' 'all in' and then some , requiring a 'marker' to call. So this is "Check-Raise then ReRaise and Beyond. I modified the above from my old post. In that thread, Teddys protested the hands involved were too dramatic.

The movie is about more than showing showdowns in poker. It certainly dramatizes the problem of being a good poker player and the frustration of ever hoping to cash in on that, also the theme of the more recent "Rounders". Naturally some of us like this movie and others not.

edited

Per the discussion on the site, I put the movie in my Netflix queue, and it arrived about two weeks ago. Earlier this week I finally gave it a try. I watched about the first 20 minutes, but it was just too dated for me to enjoy, so I turned it off. A few days later I went to the "jump to a scene" menu and watched only the parts that looked like a poker game or a cock fight. The cock fight, I might add, looked pretty bloody. You could never get away with that today, but ironically can still show people killing each other in gory detail.

TCK is the kind of movie that I'm sure I would have loved at the time it came out, but in 2010 it was just a chore to watch. Kind of like Charlie Chaplain. He was huge in his day, but today he hardly seems funny at all. I'm not saying the Cincinnati Kid is a bad movie, and I hate to badmouth a movie I didn't finish, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone born after 1950.

It's not a bad movie as a character study; it's also acted quite well. Of course, the poker itself is preposterous, but the game itself, and all the poker scenes, merely serve as a framing device anyway.

I agree that older movies may not evoke the same reactions as they were meant to half a century ago. People think differently now. A character like the Cincinnati Kid may have seemed deliciously fascinating in the conformist, Ozzie-and-Harriet 50s. Now, he seems more like a cliche.

Quote: mkl654321

It's not a bad movie as a character study; it's also acted quite well.

Karl Malden: a great actor, but wrong for the part.

Edward G. Robinson: no complaints

Anne Margaret: pretty hot still, they could have done more with her. A more weaselly actor than Malden as husband would have helped.

Steve McQueen: now that I think about it, he often played the role of a guy who is sort of the young hero who should have all the luck., and the plot has him lose or die as a surprise ending. This fits that.

Rounders: is the poker aspect better? I don't remember, should I see it again?

Quote: odiousgambit

Karl Malden: a great actor, but wrong for the part.

Edward G. Robinson: no complaints

Anne Margaret: pretty hot still, they could have done more with her. A more weaselly actor than Malden as husband would have helped.

Steve McQueen: now that I think about it, he often played the role of a guy who is sort of the young hero who should have all the luck., and the plot has him lose or die as a surprise ending. This fits that.

Rounders: is the poker aspect better? I don't remember, should I see it again?

The movie is 'The Hustler' remade for poker. A young guy tries to throw over the reigning old man. Except in Hustler, Paul Newman came back and did it. The concept is silly, they gave the impression that 'The Man' never loses a session and if he did, there would be a new 'The Man'. Everybody loses sometimes, even the very best. And Ann Margret was a total mismatch for ugly old Karl. Women that gorgeous never marry men like Shooter unless they have money. He was old enough to be her father, it was ridiculous.

Quote: odiousgambit

Karl Malden: a great actor, but wrong for the part.

Edward G. Robinson: no complaints

Anne Margaret: pretty hot still, they could have done more with her. A more weaselly actor than Malden as husband would have helped.

Steve McQueen: now that I think about it, he often played the role of a guy who is sort of the young hero who should have all the luck., and the plot has him lose or die as a surprise ending. This fits that.

Rounders: is the poker aspect better? I don't remember, should I see it again?

Rounders as a poker movie is idiotic. It pretends to be an "inside look" at the "seedy world of poker", but it falls on its ass. The sad part is that people think it's a true representation.

The game with the police, where Mike and Worm get the crap beaten out of them, is not exactly a slice of reality. The cops wouldn't have committed multiple felony assault on those guys; they might have thrown them out of the game, and even refused to cash in their chips. And the one hand where they caught Worm dealing a big hand to Mike wasn't enough reason to rob them and beat them up--again, multiple felonies. Just not believable.

The final match with Teddy KGB contains a ludicrous hand, where Mike lays down Aces up because he had a psychic brain wave or something. This is supposed to show how great a card reader Mike was, but NO poker player would lay that hand down heads-up.

Mike's "vouching" for Worm isn't a reflection of reality. He had ABSOLUTELY nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by doing that: the clock on Worm's debt wasn't moved forward by one minute. So it's not plausible that Mike would have done that.

Worm also screws Mike over several times, not repaying the money Mike loaned him when he manages to win with it, getting Mike beaten up and thrown out of the cops' poker game (where Mike had been legitimately winning), and of course, getting Mike involved with his debt to Teddy KGB.

Not that Mike doesn't also behave like a moron. His stated dream is to play in the Main Event at the WSOP, but at the start of the movie, he already has three times the money he needs. Then, at the end of the movie, he wins enough to pay off all his debts and save his skin and that of Worm as well--SO HE GAMBLES IT ALL IN A REMATCH. He happens to win.

This is a movie about a couple of idiots and losers. If we followed Mike to Vegas, we would see him dump his whole stake at the $5-10 NL game at the Bellagio before he even managed to get TO the World Series. Feh. 1/2 stars.

Quote: mkl654321

This is a movie about a couple of idiots and losers.

Geez, you missed the whole point of the movie. Its about John Malkovich and Oreo's. Quit reading so much into it. Everybody loves Oreo's.

Quote: EvenBob

Geez, you missed the whole point of the movie. Its about John Malkovich and Oreo's. Quit reading so much into it. Everybody loves Oreo's.

That movie introduced me to Oreo's.

Quote: thecesspit

That movie introduced me to Oreo's.

Actually, the movie's about Oreos as a TELL. Keep your cookies to yourself when you're playing for real money!

I always thought the most unrealistic part of Rounders was when Mike McD rebuffed Famke Janssen's advance. I mean, his girlfriend just left him, there's NO EFFING WAY he turns down someone 1/10th as good looking as Famke!

BTW, Mike's girlfriend is the biggest move wet blanket girlfriend since Myra Fleener.

I agree with every flaw pointed out, and I could probably think of more. However, I still put Rounders in my list of favorite movies. The kind of movie I could watch dozens of times. The casting of the movie couldn't have been better, including two of my favorites, John Malkovich and Ed Norton. I must have watched it at least 20 times, and every time I savor every word of dialogue, as I would a good steak. Movies just don't get much better for me.

Quote: Wizard

I agree with every flaw pointed out, and I could probably think of more. However, I still put Rounders in my list of favorite movies. The kind of movie I could watch dozens of times. The casting of the movie couldn't have been better, including two of my favorites, John Malkovich and Ed Norton. I must have watched it at least 20 times, and every time I savor every word of dialogue, as I would a good steak. Movies just don't get much better for me.

I agree that it's very watchable. I just wish that there was, SOMEWHERE in the cinematic world, a realistic depiction of the vicissitudes of the professional poker player. It's a boring life, a stressful life, and most importantly, an utterly unproductive life. Unlike many productive human endeavors, poker is a zero-sum game.

I've gotten acquainted with many pros and semi-pros over the years, and if there's one common theme in their lives, it's that they have no respect for money and cannot responsibly manage their own finances. Almost all of the top names have pissed away far more money than you've ever seen them win. Most of them have to borrow money for WSOP entry fees. After all, if you've just dumped ten grand in a tournament or cash game, does something mundane like a mortgage payment or car repair bill have any meaning? Shoving around more money in a single pot than most people make in a month distorts financial reality. I think that this trait could make a good character study, and in fact, the realistic way Mike (in Rounders) is depicted as a very smart man and an excellent poker player who, nonetheless, is a total idiot about his own personal finances is the best aspect of the movie.

I agree about John Malkovich and Ed Norton. I particularly wanted, several times, to see Mike bash in Worm's head with a rock (thereby solving several problems at once). Norton made Worm particularly annoying, which, of course, was what he was supposed to do.

We seem to agree on the pros and the cons of Rounders. Ed Norton did indeed do an outstanding job making worm annoying, yet likeable, in a way. I read that the producers wanted to make Worm a smoker, but Ed Norton refused, not wanting to glamorize the disgusting habit. Thus the scene in jail was changed to him throwing out the cigarettes.

Have you seen High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story? That portrays Stu Unger with the exact faults you just listed. However, it would be borning to make a movie about somebody playing poker 8 hours a day, like a regular job, which I think is the road to poker success.

Rounders is very unrealistic. That's why we watch movies. If they acted like regular, boring poker players with regular, realistic hands, where's the excitement? Hell, the WSOP on ESPN is completely unscripted and it's unrealistic, since they mainly show just the crazier hands. And you are supposed to get pissed at characters with faults in movies. Bottom line, I also enjoy Rounders. I really like the "feel" of the movie...the camerawork, the sets, etc.

Quote: cclub79

Rounders is very unrealistic. That's why we watch movies.

Well put. At this risk of going off topic, does anybody ever complain the James Bond movies, especially the Moore/Dalton/Brosnan ones, are unrealistic? Most of those were terribly unrealistic, and that is why I think they are so well liked. I think Quantum of Solace was much too realistic, and hope future Bond movies find a happy medium. In my opinion, the perfect balance was found in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Quote: cclub79

Rounders is very unrealistic. That's why we watch movies. If they acted like regular, boring poker players with regular, realistic hands, where's the excitement? Hell, the WSOP on ESPN is completely unscripted and it's unrealistic, since they mainly show just the crazier hands. And you are supposed to get pissed at characters with faults in movies. Bottom line, I also enjoy Rounders. I really like the "feel" of the movie...the camerawork, the sets, etc.

I guess in a medium where very little information can be conveyed over a short period (a 100-minute movie's dialogue can be written on less pages than a single chapter of the average novel), there isn't TIME for "boring" or "mundane". Yes, you probably won't ever see a poker movie about someone folding every hand for three hours. Just like on the WSOP, what you'll get is a "highlight reel".

BTW, another phony hand was the "YOU BLUFFED JOHNNY CHAN!" hand. Obviously, in that hand as portrayed, Chan himself was bluffing--so bluffing him, in turn, worked. In any case, it's easy to bluff a good player--it's the idiots who you can't bluff.

Quote: mkl654321

BTW, another phony hand was the "YOU BLUFFED JOHNNY CHAN!" hand. Obviously, in that hand as portrayed, Chan himself was bluffing--so bluffing him, in turn, worked. In any case, it's easy to bluff a good player--it's the idiots who you can't bluff.

That was the worst scene in the movie, in my opinion. Poker is supposed to be a percentage game. Good players bluff a certain percentage of the time, and they can expect to get called or raised a certain percentage of that. It seems like a very square thing to do to go against a known pro, just to beat him at one hand. I think just before the Chan story, Mike said this himself. The segue from Mike asking Knish for a loan, to that story, was also very abrupt. Knish should have chastised Mike for doing that, and said it was very out of character of him.

If I had anything to do with it, that scene would have quickly hit the cutting room floor. Like most gambling movies, it could have used a real poker player as a consultant on the staff.

Quote: Wizard

That was the worst scene in the movie, in my opinion. Poker is supposed to be a percentage game. Good players bluff a certain percentage of the time, and they can expect to get called or raised a certain percentage of that. It seems like a very square thing to do to go against a known pro, just to beat him at one hand. I think just before the Chan story, Mike said this himself. The segue from Mike asking Knish for a loan, to that story, was also very abrupt. Knish should have chastised Mike for doing that, and said it was very out of character of him.

If I had anything to do with it, that scene would have quickly hit the cutting room floor. Like most gambling movies, it could have used a real poker player as a consultant on the staff.

Word is Chan was very upset because the scene as shown was not at all how it was filmed.

Quote: Wizard

Well put. At this risk of going off topic, does anybody ever complain the James Bond movies, especially the Moore/Dalton/Brosnan ones, are unrealistic?

I think that the Moore films went off the deep end. The last ones were really stupid. I felt the same way about the later Mission Impossible films. There is a point when you are too conscious that you are watching nothing but special effects and you stop caring.

Quote: Wizard

We seem to agree on the pros and the cons of Rounders. Ed Norton did indeed do an outstanding job making worm annoying, yet likeable, in a way. I read that the producers wanted to make Worm a smoker, but Ed Norton refused, not wanting to glamorize the disgusting habit. Thus the scene in jail was changed to him throwing out the cigarettes.

Have you seen High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story? That portrays Stu Unger with the exact faults you just listed. However, it would be borning to make a movie about somebody playing poker 8 hours a day, like a regular job, which I think is the road to poker success.

Rounders was good because it was a good movie that happened to feature poker, it in fact helped start the boom. It was a fairly complex story for what it was. Because it had writing to it there was not the so-often feel that Hollywood just took a generic script and shoved some card scenes in and said, "America likes poker, here is a poker movie!"

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: Wizard

We seem to agree on the pros and the cons of Rounders. Ed Norton did indeed do an outstanding job making worm annoying, yet likeable, in a way. I read that the producers wanted to make Worm a smoker, but Ed Norton refused, not wanting to glamorize the disgusting habit. Thus the scene in jail was changed to him throwing out the cigarettes.

Have you seen High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story? That portrays Stu Unger with the exact faults you just listed. However, it would be borning to make a movie about somebody playing poker 8 hours a day, like a regular job, which I think is the road to poker success.

Rounders was good because it was a good movie that happened to feature poker, it in fact helped start the boom. It was a fairly complex story for what it was. Because it had writing to it there was not the so-often feel that Hollywood just took a generic script and shoved some card scenes in and said, "America likes poker, here is a poker movie!"

Apparently there's a fairly heated debate about whether Rounders started the poker boom or only got popular after it. I'm firmly in the "popular after" camp. I played poker in the late 90s and early 2000s in AC (the movie came out in 98) and there was no increase in popularity until 2003 with ESPN and the WSOP. The poker rooms were dead until after 2003. THEN, people started buying the Rounders DVD. The few serious players before '03 definitely liked the film the way an niche audience likes a film, but it wasn't super widely known.

Quote: cclub79

Apparently there's a fairly heated debate about whether Rounders started the poker boom or only got popular after it. I'm firmly in the "popular after" camp. I played poker in the late 90s and early 2000s in AC (the movie came out in 98) and there was no increase in popularity until 2003 with ESPN and the WSOP. The poker rooms were dead until after 2003. THEN, people started buying the Rounders DVD. The few serious players before '03 definitely liked the film the way an niche audience likes a film, but it wasn't super widely known.

Having lived in Vegas 1997-2005, I can definitely confirm that the poker boom didn't start until three things happened: the ESPN broadcasts, the internet card room boom, and the Moneymaker donkey-win. Things didn't really heat up until 2003.

Quote: cclub79

Rounders is very unrealistic. That's why we watch movies. If they acted like regular, boring poker players with regular, realistic hands, where's the excitement?

In one of the last interviews Chip Reese gave, he said poker was an extremely boring game and people who think its exciting haven't been doing it very long. For him it was exciting in the 70's when the Mob still controlled Vegas. After that, it went downhill. He said after you've seen every possible scenerio over a hundred times. the bloom is off the rose. Professional gambling is 'romantic' or 'exciting' only to people who don't actually do it.

Quote: EvenBob

In one of the last interviews Chip Reese gave, he said poker was an extremely boring game and people who think its exciting haven't been doing it very long. For him it was exciting in the 70's when the Mob still controlled Vegas. After that, it went downhill. He said after you've seen every possible scenerio over a hundred times. the bloom is off the rose. Professional gambling is 'romantic' or 'exciting' only to people who don't actually do it.

I downloaded my first poker client after watching Rounders in 2000, and started playing on Paradise Poker. I'd already been watching Late Night Poker on Channel 4 in the UK, and the first Poker Million TV show was also being aired around that time.

This was a pre-cursor to the boom. One of the pre-cursors for sure. I hardly play online any more... it got dull, and I was beating the games by enough to make it worth my time and energy. Still was fun while it lasted.

Quote: thecesspit

"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept through nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire, for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829

Nice job of digging up a good quote, sir.

Quote: thecesspit

it got dull,

Look at shows like High Stakes Poker. They have to edit down a couple hours of actual play just to get 43min for one episode. And that 43min is usually dull as hell. Thats why marathon games are played, its so long between real action hands.