Movie Review - The Big Blind

When a million-dollar movie is financed by the writer-director's poker winnings, when he writes the script between hands at the poker table, when he bets everything he has to make an independent film, you know two things for sure: The poker scenes in David James' The Big Blind will be realistic and authentic, and the surrounding poker community will be realistically depicted, too.

Judging from posts on RGP and other poker forums, this is the poker film everyone has been eagerly awaiting. Now, the wait is finally over. I have viewed the finished product and must say I am impressed.

What most people do not know about David James is that he is, in the truest sense of the word, a real rounder. Sure, you would see him around the World Series of Poker year in and year out, yet rarely in tournament events. "Live-action games, mostly private ones, are my forte," James told me. I remember back in the mid-1990s, I would observe James studiously observing and playing in high-limit games at Hollywood Park Casino, where he was a consistent winner in the top section. I also learned from a reliable source that James had a very brilliant hustle. He would search high and low for private country club games, where he'd lose all day at golf and win all night at poker against the same folks. Then, after a few weeks, he'd be asked to leave the game for being too lucky.

The Big Blind just might be the right film, in the right place, at the right time. After all, there's an amazing surge in popularity surrounding poker. It's a trend spurred on by the World Poker Tour's ascendancy to the most watched show on the Travel Channel. While all this is going on, ESPN continues to show the World Series of Poker with stunning regularity, and the number of people playing real poker for real money on the Internet just keeps skyrocketing. Meanwhile, Positively Fifth Street, a book about the World Series of Poker by Jim McManus, shoots up to fifth place on the New York Times bestseller list, and feature stories about poker in publications like Sports Illustrated and USA Today appear with increasing frequency. Books about poker are jumping off the shelves right now, so why not a film about the game?

"I had no idea that poker would be so huge when I started this," said James, a 39-year-old who in addition to being a poker maven is the owner of an executive search and recruitment firm, and now an up-and-coming filmmaker.

Like Pulp Fiction and other multiple-plot-line films that followed it, The Big Blind masterfully interlocks stories and vignettes that are set in and around Lake Elsinore Casino, where James shot his film. Because poker comprises such a mélange of people and personalities, there is no single archetypical poker player; there are dozens of them.

Using this technique allowed James to film a broadly brushed overview of people and stories found in the poker community that doesn't compromise the reality of poker as it is really played. In James' film, poker is the glue binding together a collection of misfits who have nothing in common except the lure of riches – or sometimes merely survival – that's there for the finding, or the taking, in a California poker casino.

Although a poignant dark comedy, one that depicts the sordid and twisted lives of the players who patronize a run-down poker room and look for the most part as though they stepped out of a Charles Bukowski novel, the film ultimately resolves itself in a message of hope and redemption. These are stories about real lives in the real world of poker, no different than the lives of people in the world at large, except that they're infinitely more colorful. After all, when you're at the poker table, your emotions are on display for the entire world to see, and you can probably learn more about a person's basic instincts in an hour of poker than in a month of polite social conversation.

By the film's conclusion, some characters break free from the darker elements of their lifestyle, while others remain mired in it and are ultimately consumed by their own demons and character defects.

In one of the story lines, Bob Scott, a real estate swindler with 20 years of indictments and no convictions, played by Ray William Smith – an actor with the look and physical intensity of Harvey Keitel – says the death threats he receives have become so routine that he's begun to enjoy them. Scott's secretary/girlfriend Debbie, portrayed by Elizabeth Burr, is so fed up with his boorish behavior that she doesn't quite know what to do. She's a single mother who's been beaten down by life and finds herself tethered to Scott financially as well as emotionally, although all she really needs is a little bit of love and kindness to enable her to shine again.

She finds it in the character of Roger, played by Reggie Lee. Roger is a 30-something-year-old poker player whose life is going sideways and verging on slipping away altogether. He's incredibly unlucky at cards, but eventually he's lucky in love. By never losing his humanity despite his humdrum life and poker losses, he's willing to share some basic human kindness with Debbie and is rewarded with the romance and salvation that's been missing from his life.

Other vignettes focus on betrayal, crime, addiction, gambling, failed love, and hope. The story of Sly, a small-time hustler played by Landry Barb, and Queen Mama, superbly portrayed by Angela Wright, is hilarious from the moment Sly pilfers some money from Mama's purse to play poker. She finds out, comes to the casino to drag him out bodily – she outweighs the frail Sly by at least 200 pounds, and no one, not even the security guards, want to mess with Queen Mama when she's upset – and winds up in the slammer, only to find that Sly won't answer the phone when she calls to ask him to bail her out. He's having too much fun out from under her thumb to listen to her berate him from behind bars. But you'll have to stay tuned to find out what happens to Sly when Queen Mama eventually gets out of jail.

In addition to a superb cast of talented unknown and "up-and-coming" actors, James cast former World Series of Poker winner Scotty Nguyen and high-stakes professional poker player Jennifer Harman in significant roles.

The cast of characters is huge and involves more than 50 different actors in about a dozen intertwined stories. Each character is introduced through a narrator, Darrin, played by Blake Adams (James claims that Darrin is actually his alter ego), who is the observer throughout the film and whose comments define the characters in relation to the film's broad theme. James even has a small role in the film as "Smooth," an innocent-looking preppie who has mastered the art of the "short con." He cheats at golf and hustles his livelihood by renting the same house – "I'll need first, last, and a $600 security deposit" – to as many as six couples on the same day. Having conned a six-pack of unsuspecting renters, Smooth effortlessly disappears into the casino and onto the golf course with enough of a playing stake to keep him going for a while.

Filming was done at Lake Elsinore Casino, much of it, in fact, while actual games and tournaments were under way. Most other scenes were shot within a mile of the casino. When the location manager had difficulty finding residences to shoot at, the director and his assistant went to vacant houses, and set up and "stole the shot" before anyone was the wiser. Other scenes were shot in vacant lots, downtown public walkways, and alongside the lake.

The Big Blind was shot in Super 16mm and "bumped up" to 35mm, employing the same make and model camera used to film Leaving Las Vegas, with the same hyper-realistic grainy element. Many Southern California poker players remember when this film was made, and quite a few local players served as extras in it. ESCARGOT attendees were treated to a rough-cut screening shortly after filming was completed, but three years of editing has altered the film significantly, and changed it for the better.

The Big Blind is a realistic series of stories about lives centered on poker and the struggles that ensue around it. It's a comedy, to be sure, as well as an almost anthropological overview of poker players and a sociological look at the milieu in which they abide. It is also a film about struggle, hope, perseverance, survival, love, and redemption. And although much of it is dark, it is always humorous, and ultimately an optimistic series of stories about love, tenacity, and the triumph of the human spirit.

The film recently screened at the Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival. Given today's interest in all things poker, I wouldn't be surprised to see it rack up an award or two at other film festivals and find its way into general release soon. Keep an eye out for it, and make sure you make the effort to see it. If you're like me, you'll say to yourself, "Finally, a real movie about us." You can view a trailer of the film and make your own inquiries on how to get a copy of The Big Blind on DVD or VHS at www.thebigblind.com.

Lou Krieger's newest book, Internet Poker: How to Play and Beat Online Poker Games, is available through Card Player and at www.ConJelCo.com, and all of his books can be found at major bookstores and online at www.Amazon.com. Raise your game with Lou Krieger at http://www.royalvegaspoker.com.