Gregory 'Mars' Callahan. Actor. Writer. Director. The man has had a labor of love looming in his life for over 10 years, and now, in the year 2003, it can faithfully be called Poolhall Junkies.
Poolhall Junkies. A movie about an extremely good pool player with a chance for going pro which never comes to pass. The alternative? Hustling in the local poolhall of course. And while the main character watches other parts of go down the toilet, he can always trust his ability to play pool. And even despite all of the hard times he suffers, countless scoldings from his girlfriend, and his broken hand (that's right, one handed pool at times), the game saves the day at the end of the flick.
Poolhall Junkies isn't a great movie. It's actually not even that good of a movie if you're not into pool, but you can rest assured, the movie will entertain you through and through. I personally am no good at playing pool at all, and have been known to ask for some pointers here and there about how the game is played, but I do know that what you see being pulled off in this movie is absolutely outstanding. One of the many reasons the parts of the film you think are bad have to be taken to heart in respect of the passion Mars Callahan obviously has for the game and faithfully portraying it onscreen.
Now, let's talk performances. There is no doubt about it...Alison Eastwood, who plays girlfriend "Tara" to Mars Callahan's "Johnny Doyle", was absolutely dreadful. From her first scene with Callahan to her last, everything comes across as the most forced fake acting job in the movie business. This girl should have never have been cast in such a big role, but if I reminisce the credits a bit, I seem to recall another 'Eastwood' (maybe a producer) attached to the project. Let's just hope we can blame her awful performance on 'a favor' rather then point the finger at an unforgivable casting decision. Eastwood's performance alone brought the rating of the film down at least a full star.
I have to talk about Mars Callahan's performance as he wrote and directed the film as well. There's no pretending here, this guy knows how to act. And after 10 years with this story, in which originally wrote himself in as the role of younger brother, Callahan better know what he's doing.
Of course everyone is a sucker for Christopher Walken, but when you throw the surprisingly high caliber performances in of Chazz Palminteri and Rick Schroder you can tell that these indie filmmakers got their money's worth. The intensity on Schroder's face during his every move during the hustle, the passionate taking on of the tough guy role by Palminteri, and the utter style that is Christopher Walken made for a truly brilliant character based storyline.
There were only two problems I had with Poolhall Junkies besides the horrendous acting ability of Alison Eastwood. The first being the fact that too many cuts were predictable. There was a scene where the friend's and little brother of our main character are sitting in a diner discussing a way to solve Jonny's problem. The typical weak friend out of the bunch gets propositioned to do something he would never do in a million years and he even fesses up to it. During his fessing the camera cuts directly to the next scene where our weak little friend is doing exactly what he said he would never do.
I know, I know, you've seen it before. Where Poolhall Junkies fails is doing this, doing it way too many times, and doing this sort of thing too close together! A major flaw which took me straight out of the film and had me referring to film techniques.
The other element I didn't like was the fact that the writer used Christopher Walken the way he's been used a thousand times before. You know, the whole thing where Walken's character goes through the passionate telling of metaphorical story which REALLY has nothing to do with the plot. Yeah, he does that in this film as well. Another sequence which took me right out of the story and had me thinking of other movies where Walken does the exact same thing.
Overall, Poolhall Junkies is enjoyable. I'd definitely sit down to watch this movie again as I feel it has many elements which are truly worth your time and money. Why 2 and a half stars? This film nailed the poolhall lifestyle, or at least made it very interesting.
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