Two For the Money (2005) 7/10
Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) was a college football star until he trashed his knee. Now he predicts football outcomes for a 900-line. There he’s discovered by Walter Abrams (Al Pacino), who owns the biggest sports tout operation around. Lang becomes Abrams’s protege, caught up in a whirlwind of high-end gambling, and in Abrams’s marriage to Toni (Rene Russo).
This is the kind of movie that never quite makes the radar of the casual movie-goer. It has a small but strong cast, an interesting premise that’s hard to describe (as the preceding paragraph illustrates) and lacks the kind of hook that fills theater seats. I would probably never have seen it if I wasn’t in a hotel room with nothing to do but browse HBO’s offerings.
For all the whir and buzz of high-stakes gambling and hard-sell phone banks, Two for the Money is fundamentally a character study. Brandon is lost without football, and allows Walter to make him into a new person; “John Anthony, the Million Dollar Man.” Walter is a gambling addict who likens himself to an alcoholic bartender; he serves but doesn’t drink. Yet with Brandon/John, he seems to be gambling again—on his protege’s career.
Most interesting is Renee Russo as Toni, doing devoted wife as if you’ve never seen one on-screen before. She is luminous in the role; solid in her commitment to her husband, honest about his many faults, frightened of the direction he’s taking. I can’t say the movie would be worth watching without her. She’s really something.
Pacino is terrific here. He’s over the top in that patented Pacino way, but he’s playing a character; he’s definitely Pacino playing Abrams and not Pacino playing Pacino which, let’s face it, gets old. McConaughey is more of a cipher, but he’s playing a character who doesn’t really know himself.
Two for the Money meanders, and isn’t quite sure of itself. It oversells certain points, and then backs away from other points that should have been solidly nailed. Unfinished business with Brandon’s father is alluded to, but just when you think we’re moving into some satisfying family drama, the script backs away, and leaves us with Brandon’s surrogate father (Abrams) instead. That felt like a gaping hole to me. This was one example of a dot not being connected; I felt writer Dan Gilroy didn’t know the difference between hanging back for subtlety, and avoiding the issue because you don’t know how to write it. Maybe the “based on a true story” aspect inhibited him.
Despite these dissatisfactions, Two for the Money delivers strong performances, intimate, complex relationships, and interesting characters.
