Put Breaking Bad‘s Gus Fring, Hellboy, and Argo’s CIA agent Jon Bates together, and you know you’re in for a pretty bad ass film. And Greg Francis’ latest movie Poker Night is exactly that.
Francis arrives in style, writing and directing his first ever feature film after learning his trade on big TV shows in the crime genre, and uses all that knowledge to create an exciting crime thriller with twists and turns aplenty.
Hitting On Demand just over a week ago, the movie has already received an 8.5 rating on IMDB and follows up recent poker movies Runner Runner and Gutshot Straight which landed on our small screens on just December 2.
The film centers, as the title suggests, on a poker night where six men drink beer, play cards, and tell stories. Except these are no regular stories. They serve purpose and take Stan Jeter, played by Beau Mirchoff, on a journey.
With an all-star cast, we see Ron Perlman, Giancarlo Esposito, and Titus Welliver play veteran cops who hold a weekly poker night. Joining the old faces is ambitious rookie Jeter who hasn’t quite earned the respect of his senior officers.
The young policeman is well known in the community after single-handedly taking down a gangster, but he still has a lot to learn. Perlman, Esposito, and Welliver talk him through their tales of impressive collars, cock-ups, and apathy towards villains – all designed to educate Jeter.
But then it gets dark and Greg Francis’ talent for writing horror really does shine through. Jeter and his girlfriend (Halston Sage) are abducted by a masked psycho who tortures, taunts, and beats Jeter, all while the rookie is trying to work out exactly who he is.
It’s a film full of tension, using flashbacks to establish the psycho’s backstory, as well as flicking back to the poker game which is an almost perfect backdrop. This perhaps saps the suspense a little from the movie, but there’s still plenty to love about this film.
Particularly with poker movies being one of the “in” themes in Hollywood right now. Poker itself has grown hugely over the last decade with the growth of online poker offering a wide variety of games and live casinos seeing their tables very much full, even celebritizing the more interesting characters in the industry. Both Molly Bloom and Mike Matusow are having their lives and careers taken to the big screen, so the move of the game into horror is almost certainly welcome.
It’s a fine debut film from Francis who clearly excels in the genre. Supported by a fine cast, the film will leave you not only guessing until the very end, but also guessing where the director will go for his next feature.
Hey Mitchell! Thanks for writing about the film!
You are very welcome