Poker in the Media: All In
by Bodog Poker | Jan 25 2011
The 2006 drama/comedy All In is one of those movies that exists merely because of the vagaries of international film financing, tax loopholes and popular trends that allow a film to get backing and releases in markets where it's unlikely to recoup the cost, but the producers don't mind. It was, in fact, one of the last movies to take advantage of a German law that rewarded investment in films where 100% of any investments in the German film industry was a tax deduction. This meant that investors only had to pay taxes on any profits generated and the rich would frequently dump funds into movies like this and the cinematic oeuvre of Uwe Boll to not feel as much of a sting when the taxman came calling. It also received the backing of a major online poker site, whose name is prominently mentioned and logo featured through the movie.
Honestly, though, All In is just bad enough to be genuinely entertaining if you're the sort of person that enjoys bad movies for being extremely terrible. The movie starts in flashback where we get all of the back-story for Ace (played by Dominique Swain, the daughter of John Travolta's character in Face/Off), a medical student whose
poker player daddy (Michael Madsen) drove away his wife with his card-playing ways and so he decided to drive off a cliff. However, it's important to note that he didn't off himself without leaving such wisdom as “Every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser.” If only a crooner like Kenny Rogers had written a song that offered up such wisdom.
We flash forward to the present day where Ace is now off to medical school with the disapproval of her mother, who seems to hate, you know, helping people just as much as she hates poker. There's a woman with her priorities straight. Anyway, Ace gets involved in a completely unrelated subplot about a medical scandal in which a doctor is blackmailing patients and being all sorts of just awful. Thankfully, this gets pushed out of the way until the doctor comes back to be evil near the end of the film, but let's get to the most important part: the poker in the movie.
Ace and her friends are strapped for cash – for sudden, unexplained reasons – and they decide, after a fun night of playing strip poker that they'll become sharks and use each of their abilities, Captain Planet-like, to rake in truckloads of cash. Because, you know, that's how it works. One of the guys in her circle of friends has a photographic memory; another is good at crunching number, etc. Ace, apparently one with the spirit of her dead father, is, of course, the poker genius.
For a movie that's about poker, it takes forever to get to the actual play and then it fumbles the ball dramatically throughout the short time that it actually focuses on the game. By the time Ace makes it to the Big Online Poker Room Sponsored Tournament, we're just waiting for her dad to come back from the grave to play against her, and guess what happens? Michael Madsen in old man makeup and the Evil Doctor both lose to Ace, but only after a more ridiculous hand than the one in Casino Royale is played.
Avoid unless you're intoxicated or, like me, genuinely interested in seeing how bad movies about something you love can be.
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