‘Deal’ is No Big Deal as Career of Burt Reynolds Fades Away

HollywoodChicago.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:07:48 -0600

CHICAGO – Poor Burt Reynolds. As the No. 1 box-office star from 1978 to 1982, he revived his film career in 1997 with “Boogie Nights”. Since then, he has had the long, slow decline of “B” movies and bad remakes. Reynolds even tainted his own legacy by participating in the horrible 2005 redo of “The Longest Yard”.

Shannon Elizabeth in “Deal”.
Photo credit: MGM

Will he ever get the one last script that will return him to glory? The film “Deal” isn’t it. Reynolds plays Tommy Vinton: a mysterious stranger who begins observing young poker hotshot Alex (Bret Harrison).

Alex is from the Internet age and won an online contest to get to the World Series of Poker. Tommy is an old-school, professional poker player from the 1970s whose luck ran out shortly thereafter.

He hasn’t played in 20 years on a promise to his wife. Tommy sees something in the Internet hotshot, though, and on the sly begins to coach him and bankroll his run through the poker tournament circuit.

As it happens in old mentor/young hotshot films, the two must angrily part. When you throw in the subplot of Reynolds’ wife leaving him, it sets up the inevitable showdown between old professional Tommy and his former protégé. According to Hoyle, it has to be at the World Series of Poker, too.

Burt Reynolds in “Deal”.
Photo credit: MGM

The script treats all the characters like cliché factories. Every narrative element and poker situation is played up as if nobody in the history of television or cinema has even seen it before.

This recycles every nuance of every underdog sports movie – from “Rocky” to “Rudy” to “Invincible” – but not well.

Bret Harrison as Alex plays the part like a poor man’s Charlie Schlatter: all toothy smile but with no idea how to develop his character.

Shannon “American Pie” Elizabeth gets the worst “deal” of anyone in playing Alex’s potential girlfriend as background material for a sleazy payoff. It was actually cringe inducing because it was set up poorly with a tacky and ultimately unnecessary reveal.

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Reynolds plays Tommy like he needs a three-year nap. His dyed hair and plastic surgery scars are evident in every close-up. Even when his character is in supposed triumph, his demeanor radiates defeat.

It was acting as paycheck cashing that only a star of his magnitude could achieve. Perhaps his playhouse in Florida is behind in the mortgage.

I kid old Burt. I’d like to think there’s that one last script out there that can take the 72 year-old legend to retirement glory. Reynolds has a picture opening in 2009 where he plays a character named Jefferson Steel – that’s right: Jefferson Steel.

The name of this epic is “A Bunch of Amateurs”. That, too, is an apt title description for the production team behind “Deal”.

“Deal” opens in Chicago and elsewhere on April 25, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Following ‘The Sandlot’ Home Run, ‘The Final Season’ Strikes Out

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:14:07 -0600

CHICAGO – Once a year, it seems a studio releases a film that tries to nudge its way into the almost-holy canon of American sports cinema. Most years, studios succeed. Recently, we have been lucky with the caliber of sports films offered up to us.

Rachel Leigh Cook in “The Final Season”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
You might think the recipe for a decent sports drama is easy: take two parts small town, one part coach no one believes in, three parts dramatic music and stir with just a dash of romance.

As “The Final Season” shows us, though, just because you have all the right parts doesn’t mean you will make the perfect dish.

“The Final Season”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Sean Astin tries to bring some of the magic he had with “Rudy” to this story of a small-town Iowa high school baseball team as it competes in its final season before being consolidated into a larger school district.

The film is the true story of baseball coach Kent Stock (Astin) who leads Norway High School through its last baseball season.

Stock has to overcome his own shortcomings with replacing longtime coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe) and convincing his team that its conclusive season is worth playing.

“The Final Season”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Director David Mickey Evans (“The Sandlot”) sets a tone of a very Norman Rockwellian small-town America that is over the top in just about every way.

The dialogue is stale and in some parts sounds like the actors are reading VCR instructions. The lines that are injected with some emotion are so poorly acted that they come across more as funny than serious.

The whole cast looks like they are just going through the motions. Even the extras appear as if they have better places to be. “The Final Season” just has way too much going on.

“The Final Season”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
There’s a school closing, a coach leaving, a new coach coming in (his love interest), the rebel kid (plus his love interest), the player who hates the team and the player who loves the team. You see all of this before they really get into any baseball.

The casting was particularly poor as Astin looks too young to be in charge of teenagers. By the way, where on Earth does a girl who looks like Rachel Leigh Cook fall in love with a guy who looks like Sean Astin?

Even though they were going for a delicious treat, the ingredients of poor acting, disastrous dialogue and bad casting made this a meal that needs to be skipped.

By Evan O’Donnell
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com