Despite somewhat misleading announcements, Poker Face isn’t actually a poker movie. It’s a decent thriller in which poker helps develop the story, but the game itself doesn’t get much screen time whatsoever.
This isn’t to say that the movie isn’t worth watching, but it’s better to go into it knowing what to expect.
Jake Foley (Russell Crowe) is a billionaire who made his money through poker. He started off playing the game, but then developed an online poker site whose code morphed into something else, and, long story short, he and his friend sold the technology to the military.
Despite the vast amount of money, Foley finds himself at the end of the road, diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not telling anyone about his predicament, the billionaire invites his childhood friends for a game of high stakes poker.
This isn’t the first time the crew gathers for some poker, but this time around, Jake has a few surprises in store for them, and as the night unravels, his motives for bringing everyone together become clearer.
It is a classic thriller twist, but Poker Face decided to go down a rather mellow road, so your reaction won’t be one of shock or disgust. It will rather be, “oh, well, good for him, I guess…”
And perhaps this isn’t a bad thing, as real life isn’t always shocking and people, though hurt, aren’t always after a vicious vengeance, but it’s the shocking twists that make movies memorable and ensure people will talk about them and will come back to them for another viewing.
Core XXX Movie Details & Rating
- Title: Poker Face
- Year: 2022
- Director: Russell Crowe
- Main Cast: Russell Crowe, Liam Hemsworth, RZA, Aden Young
- Genre: Thriller/Mystery
- Duration: 95 min.
- Overall Score: 8/10
| Criteria | Score (1-10) | Reviewer note |
| Poker Realism | 9/10 | While there are only a few actual poker scenes, the action seems accurate and there are no crazy one-in-a-million hands. |
| Story & Writing | 7/10 | The story has quite a bit of promise, but it gets somewhat watered down, leading to a rather mellow ending. |
| Acting & Characters | 7/10 | Crowe is pretty good in his role, but it feels like the rest of the cast didn’t get much chance to really show their talent. |
| Poker Excitement Factor | 8/10 | A couple of hands that are shown are fairly exciting, but don’t expect too much actual poker from this movie. |
| Entertainment value | 8/10 | It won’t rock your world, but Poker Face is well worth watching once. |
What We Loved About the Movie
While Poker Face isn’t a poker movie in the strictest sense, it certainly has a number of nice references to the game.
At the very start, Foley, when asked about what his job is, says he is a gambler. Even though this isn’t true (as far as where his money really came from), it’s what he feels like deep down.
He started off as a gambler, and he never lost the passion for cards. In one of the opening scenes, he talks about his love for poker and mentions a number of game variations that he and his friends enjoy. Surprisingly, all of the games on the list are actual poker variants that are quite popular, instead of some completely random list containing a couple of games that no one has heard of.
As already mentioned, although poker plays a prominent role in the film, there are only a few minutes of gameplay shown in the movie, and one hand that’s shown from start to finish features Jake and another player turning the nuts and holding flush draws. They get it all in, as they should, and, surprisingly, the river is a complete brick.
It’s a split pot; the game goes on. Sure, it’s a bit of drama, but these kinds of things happen all the time. It’s not quads over straight flush or some other nonsense.
Stakes are insanely high (each player has $5,000,000 to start with), but this isn’t their usual game. Foley decided to treat his friends to large starting stacks, and for a dying billionaire, this is not a shocking amount of money.
Of course, the game is just a pretense, as Jake set the whole thing up and drugged his friends so that they’d open up about secrets they’ve been carrying around for a long time. Still, they have no idea about it, so, to them, the money is very real.
Shortcomings
Probably the biggest shortcoming of Poker Face is the lack of scenes featuring poker. The movie certainly doesn’t live up to its promise in this department. Even though it is clear the game itself wasn’t the primary motive, it’s hard not to feel disappointed about not seeing a few intense hands among friends before the film moves on to other things.
Foley supposedly made his money from creating a poker site and then selling the underlying technology to the military (or something along those lines). This feels unnecessarily complicated. Why can’t it be just, he made a site early on, before the boom, and then sold it to a huge gaming company?
The movie has a bit of a slow start, and, for a brief moment, I was actually wondering if I was watching the right film. Also, as already mentioned, the whole climax is somewhat anticlimactic, although it aligns with the kind of character Crowe portrays in Jake Foley.
Final Verdict
If you’re a hardcore poker fan, looking to watch a hardcore poker movie, this isn’t it. But it’s a pretty decent thriller with a lot of poker references and a little bit of play, so it’s worth watching.
If you look at ratings online, I feel like most critics and many viewers were too harsh on Poker Face. It isn’t a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s really not nearly as bad as you might think, seeing those one and two-star reviews.
It’s fun, a bit mellow, slightly melodramatic, but, in the end, it’s a feel-good movie that you won’t regret seeing.
Overall Score: 8/10
