Guns, Girls and Gambling

Guns, Girls and Gambling_720P

Guns, Girls and Gambling_360P

Writer & director Michael Winnick's "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" is truly a guilty pleasure. This lightweight, breezy, shoot'em up, road trip epic about a group of Elvis impersonators and the search for an ancient Hopi Indian mask is a lot of fun. A diverse cast, funny performances, interesting characters, scenic settings, amusing dialogue, a little nudity, and good cinematography make this opus worth watching. Basically, "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" is a derivative but entertaining beer and pizza picture that never wears out its welcome. The Elvis impersonators reminded me of the Kurt Russell & Kevin Costner shoot'em up "10,000 Miles to Graceland" and the quirky humor sounded like something out of a Cohen brothers movie. I imagine that in screenplay form that this would have a real page turner. Calling "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" a Tarantino movie because of a trunk shot and Christian Slater's presence is pretty facile. Altogether, I genuinely enjoyed this high body count contemporary western. The blonde chick in the black body suit with two automatic pistols was incredibly sexy.

Writer & director Michael Winnick's "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" is truly a guilty pleasure. This lightweight, breezy, shoot'em up, road trip epic about a group of Elvis impersonators and the search for an ancient Hopi Indian mask is a lot of fun. A diverse cast, funny performances, interesting characters, scenic settings, amusing dialogue, a little nudity, and good cinematography make this opus worth watching. Basically, "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" is a derivative but entertaining beer and pizza picture that never wears out its welcome. The Elvis impersonators reminded me of the Kurt Russell & Kevin Costner shoot'em up "10,000 Miles to Graceland" and the quirky humor sounded like something out of a Cohen brothers movie. I imagine that in screenplay form that this would have a real page turner. Calling "Guns, Girls, and Gambling" a Tarantino movie because of a trunk shot and Christian Slater's presence is pretty facile. Altogether, I genuinely enjoyed this high body count contemporary western. The blonde chick in the black body suit with two automatic pistols was incredibly sexy.

While there is a pervasive sense of fun with tongue firmly in cheek, this movie is ultimately too derivative to be that memorable. Most of all, it's just lazy. Most of the characters, if you can really call them that, don't even have names. The writer(s) also must have thought they were being really clever by having movie clichés and racial stereotypes blatantly pointed out, yet they use them like they were going out of style (see what I did there...). The bare thread of a plot is about a bunch of people who are after a priceless Apache/Hopi warrior mask that was stolen from an Indian/Native American casino. Some of those colorful caricatures include four different Elvis impersonators, a rancher, a cowboy, a college student, two sheriffs a lesbian prostitute and a blonde assassin who wears black and has a penchant for quoting Edgar Allan Poe. And that, my friends, is as far as the character development goes. What's worse is that the movie is clearly trying to ape Tarantino and Rodriguez, but it does it really badly. Still there are a few moments you'll laugh at, and the movie is mercifully short. It also has a pretty good soundtrack. Overall, if you're looking for some time to kill it's not too bad. Just don't go in expecting a good movie.

After the utter failure of Shadow Puppets, I would have thought this director would have been laughed out of Hollywood. However, someone decided he needed a second chance and gave this hack millions? to make another flop. I finally saw this film, just curious to see how bad a film could be. I tried to be open minded, but I spent the entire movie laughing at how bad this movie is. From the clichéd freeze frames showing different characters to the abysmally bad writing to the completely clueless directing, Winnick doesn't disappoint in showing just why Hollywood sucks so bad. This movie goes from violent to racist with a flip of the wrist, and then throws out some bad action film clichés that I guess are supposed to be funny. The actual camera-work is OK, so I guess the DPs were alright. Otherwise, even the camera angles are clichés. If you like horrible films that make you laugh because they are so utterly bad, then give this a try.

Review: This movie is really bad. The storyline is terrible and the movie seemed cheap and rushed. What the hell was a star like Gary Oldman thinking! He's not in the same league as the Z class actors that were in this film. Anyway, although the leading lady was a looker and the opening credits were promising, the film goes downhill after the card game. It's one of those films that you have to piece together, but after a while your not really that bothered. The whole mask thing was interesting at the beginning but then the plot goes all over the place. A bad rental! Round-Up: What is going on with Christian Slater? He just can't pick a decent movie. He was definitely in this film for the pay day. It also seemed like Gary Oldman was in it for a favour because I can't see him reading the script and wanting to be in it. As for the other characters, most of them are near the end of there careers so it's not a surprise that there in a straight to DVD movie. I recommend this movie to people who are into there crime capers about a valuable mask getting stolen. 1/10

"Give me the mask!" Six Elvis impersonators are sitting around playing poker, in the morning one of them (Slater) wakes up alone at the table and is quickly accused of stealing a Native American mask. Trying to convince everyone that he is innocent he tries to find the real thief. One by one people wind up dead and time is running out for him. I have said for a while that just because a movie has an all star cast doesn't mean that it's automatically good. This is an exception. I'm not saying that this is an amazing movie because it's not but this is just plain and simple a fun movie to watch. This is one of the better straight to video movies that I have seen in a while. The writing is very witty and funny. Running gags and repetitive one-liners make the movie funny and fast moving. This is the type of movie you can just put in and watch without having to think about. I like those sometimes. Overall, a very entertaining movie with witty writing. I give it a B+.

There are numerous films that hit the straight to video market featuring a great cast that delivers some interesting filmmaking, but just never get the push you would think. The latest Guns, Girls, and Gambling sports a cast featuring Christian Slater, Gary Oldman, Powers Boothe, Jeff Fahey, Chris Kattan, Sam Trammell, Tony Cox and Dane Cook. The trailer looked pretty entertaining, but the title alone explains why it didn't get the wide release push, but it also has potential of delivering something fun or a total train wreck. Guns, Girls, and Gambling follows a wild and crazy heist story featuring Elvis impersonators, Indians, cowboys, a blond assassin, a frat boy, corrupt cops and a prostitute all out for one thing, a priceless American Indian artifact stolen during a poker game. This film is just as wacky as the title implies. The case seems to be having a great time with this over the top silly and fun story to deliver a fun ride. The story isn't anything all that new, pretty much taking the mistaken identity direction with everyone out to get the same thing while assuming one character has it, while they have no idea what is going on. There is a wide range of crazy characters popping up that are over the top, but somehow manage to work. Christian Slater has always been great, but for some reason been bumped to the straight to video market lately, but this is by far the best film he has delivered and really seems to having a great time. Seeing Gary Oldman walk around as an Elvis impersonator is pretty much worth the film and the fact that he seems to be having fun with it makes it that much better. The rest of the cast do great with their parts to bring this violent dark comedy to life. This is one of those films that doesn't deliver anything all that new, but has enough star power and fun to create a film worthwhile to check out. Unlike most of the films like this that are released straight to video this one works and delivers exactly what the title says. If you like any of these actors and just want to have a crazy ride through an over the top story of violence, betrayal, cowboys, Indians, and Elvis then this is the movie for you.

I have to admit that when I sat down to watch "Guns, Girls, and Gambling", I wasn't expecting that much. I thought the title sounded lame (and I still feel that way.) And there was the fact that Christian Slater was in the movie, an actor who has churned out one lame direct-to-DVD movie after another for some years now. But to my surprise, I really enjoyed this movie. The script is very clever, slowly unpeeling one layer at a time, and careful enough to leave some surprises right at the very end. The screenplay is also very funny at times - there were a number of moments when I laughed out loud, something I seldom do when watching a movie. The movie is also very well made on a low budget - I watched the movie on Blu- ray, and it looked very slick and colorful. And Christian Slater is actually pretty good in the movie's central role. But most of the credit for the movie's success is due to writer/director Michael Winnick. I look forward to his next movie.