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It may not be a Hatrack style movie, but it's my favorite Al Pacino film since "Insomnia." It's a character story as good as any movie I've seen, even though it wasn't as stylish as Serenity. I've never thought about the loser's high side of gambling, as Pacino says (roughly), "It's because as you see the chips go away, you know that they can never take your (grabs his chest)." I don't think Pacino meant his life; I think Pacino meant his dignity, that inner music that lets people lift their head up when they walk.
Again, I don't know know a whole lot about addiction or gambling, but depending on who you talk to, I've been a loser for a while and I think that it's a powerful theme that's played over and over as we watch that characters gamble everything that's dear to them. It's a much more personal movie than any of the gambling movies I've seen, as evidenced by the end, where the winners of the football games don't matter. The relationships between the characters do, and best of all, the relationships between the characters are not determined by the football, but by love. The movie is touching in a powerful and family way, and I wasn't expecting it.
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