Poolhall Junkies (2003)

People are voting emotionally.

Not even bad in a good way

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Bit of guilty pleasure this film.All of sudden Hollywood was quite as a church for Mars Callahan after this stinkbomb.For a movie about hustling, you'd think they would have made the hustles good. MadTV's The pool hustler sketch has better acting than this rancid turd of a film.Straight to DVD. It's like the SyFy channel made a pool film. Mega Whiteboy-Hustler vs Mega Punk-ass-lameTerrible actor, director & writer. I see 11 years later he seems to have hustled some more production money for something call Springbreak'83. 11 years........

The only good thing about this movie is that it is about pool. The script seems like it was written by someone with ADHD. It is packed with cliché dialog and way too many side stories which amount to nothing and elicit no emotional response. The hustles seem like they were conceived by a 7th grader who just discovered deception and semantics. The synopsis should be, albeit a run-on sentence:"One of the best pool players in the world, who stopped playing seriously for no reason, needs to rescue his brother after he makes a bet he can't afford with someone he can't beat and then gets thrown in jail for robbing a pawn shop to try to pay it off."Usually when something like this happens, the viewer should have an emotional investment in one or more characters which would make them want to root for the main character. I couldn't really feel bad for someone who, through arrogance, made a legitimate bet with the wrong guy, lost fair and square, and then tried to rob someone else to pay for it.I will admit, I love pool, and so the parts where they actually played were entertaining, you've got to like Christopher Walken, and it had decent camera work.The only thing that kept me interested throughout this movie was pool. Other than that, it's a shame, but I don't see any other redeeming qualities in this movie. It could have been so, so, so much better.

This movie was amazing!!! I got lucky and to be truthfully honest bought the DVD because I saw Walken and Palminteri were starring in it. WOW! absolutely a wonderful find. Christopher Walken (as always captures the screen without even saying a word). It was great to see Rod Steiger again. Ha ha! and Ricky Schroeder has come a long way for "silver spoons". His acting ability was Aces in this wonderful flick. I have always enjoyed watching Palminteri on the screen (always a bad guy but so believable and entertaining as an actor). Such a wonderful cast and I would hope a sequel would arise from this but if not still a great movie that stands on its own. I love the game of pool and this movie does it justice. Even if your not a pool player you could not help but enjoy this movie. All characters have incredible depth. I highly recommend it.

Seriously. This entire film was a bunch of incredibly contrived garbage. Alison Eastwood acts like a piece of wood. The writer/director/star of this movie couldn't act or write or direct.Case in point, this ridiculous mini-scene at an RV lot: "I'll bet you (something ridiculous) I can tell you where you got your shoes." "Yeah, where?" "You got your left shoe on your left foot and your right shoe on your right foot." (Cut to next scene, with the con accomplished.) What a load of crap! Anyone who has ever been to New Orleans knows that old line.I believe that this is a bold cinematic misadventure. This film is terrible on every level. I would encourage the filmmaker to cut his losses and go back to barber college or clown school or anything that requires him NOT to be in front of or behind the camera.