Not Something I Expected From Russell Crowe.

Crowe is one of my favorite actors, I love his work plus he is a fantastic actor. When I first heard about this movie, I immediately went to read up on some background information about the movie and in the end, I was kind of impressed with the information I found on the internet. I was curious about watching the movie because Crowe was listed as the director and writer of the movie. So that got me hooked from the beginning.

This is my first time watching a movie by Crowe that he directed and wrote at the same time. I was so curious as to what the movie was all about and how well the movie will turn out to be. This movie received a lot of backlash and disappointing reviews from his fans and for me, it was not something I expected from him. Without further wasting time, let's go straight to the synopsis of the movie.

Poker Face (2022) is an American mystery and thriller that was directed by Russell Crowe and co-written with Stephen M. Coates. This movie was released in November 2022 and distributed by Screen Media Films. It starred Russell Crowe, Liam Hemsworth, Elsa Pataky, Brooke Satch well, RZA, and some other actors that might be familiar to you. This movie revolves around a billionaire tech who hosts a high-stakes poker game with his childhood friends, but everything takes a different route leading to the mystery.

The movie started with showing a group of young teenage boys going to play together by the ocean and play poker at the same time. Quickly, they all went their separate ways after the winner emerged. Then years later, Crowe (Jake, the billionaire tech) was seen in the art gallery purchasing an artwork where a woman asked if he could paint a portrait of him. He agreed reluctantly while his mind was not present. Abruptly, we see Jake changing his wristwatch while we listen to his voiceover of how he made his wealth with his childhood friend Drew (RZA), and then we see him spending the whole day with a shaman in a secluded tropical location.

Later into the movie, a scene between him and his daughter explaining why his daughter was without a mother was introduced, and then afterward, he invites his friends over to his penthouse leaving some mysterious instructions for them to meet him at his estate in a secluded location through his lawyer. He hosts them at his estate house for poker night. When all his childhood friends arrived, little did they know that the poker game night was just an ordinary game, but a game that might cost them their lives.

As the game went on, out of nowhere some characters were introduced into the movie. These characters' names were unknown, but a conversation took place on the phone secretly with one of Jake's childhood friends, planning how they were to come to Jake's estate to steal some artwork. Again, out of nowhere, Drew shows up at Jake's estate unannounced, pretending to be a home invader, and then the supposedly "thriller" in the movie begins.

My Opinion About The Movie And Rating.

This movie was something I never expected from Crowe. I am used to seeing him act in fantastic and blockbuster movies, but not this kind of film. As I said earlier, this movie was written and directed by him. I think Crowe should stick to being an actor. The real issue with this movie is that it wants to be too many things, but in the end, it doesn't succeed in any special way at any of them. Poker Face is not a straightforward poker game movie because of the absence of thriller, suspense, action, and mystery. It is just a movie with lots of plots in the storyline which I see as a big flaw!

Let's talk about the Plot; there's nothing special about the plot at all as it is a 1 hr 30 minute film that could easily be shortened into 20 minutes and not much from the plot would've been missed. The first 45 mins were slow for me, then when the movie picks up momentum, it leads to many different things unrelated to the storyline which made me wonder why put in details or subplots that are pretty much pointless and unnecessary.

The plot was not written well, bad scripting, and the story wasn't told. From the start of the movie, the first scene wasn't important to me. Yes, we saw a group of young boys swimming by the ocean, it was brief, it was underdeveloped and it didn't connect well with the plot of the movie. The scenes in the movie were not developed well, not arranged well, with lots of potholes, and a lot of missing pieces of scenes that could have helped the movie to be suspense-packed.

The Actors and Characters; my first problem with the character is Liam Hemsworth. Why was he cast to be Jake's friend when his age didn't match the plot? Though they tried to make him look old, he just turned out to look like a phony and ridiculous. The makeup was awful and his performance was terrible. I don't like him in movies as he infuriates me. This made me wonder how he would perform in the The Witcher series 😂. All the rest of the characters were manageable, but they had no spice to them. Even the actors who played the roles of the thieves were so dumb, and unrealistic, and acted unnaturally. Though two actors stood out from all this mess; Crowe and the art thief. These two acted natural and they were unpredictable. In the end, the characters were not credible.

Before I round, the editing of this movie is as disjointed as the movie plot. The editing and cinematography were bad, and cheap photography and camera work were below average as there were no angle shots during acting scenes which made the actions bland. The ending part of this movie was emotional and kind of deserving. I will say the ending part is the best and most good part of this movie.

Rating this movie, it's a 5 out of 10 for me. I wouldn't recommend this movie to dedicated fans of Crowe and it will piss them off and discourage them, but if you are a thriller lover and a poker game lover, you give the movie a chance.