The Cooler

To celebrate the ten year anniversary of "The Cooler," I re-watched enough of it to remind myself just how misinformed, hackneyed and shabbily constructed it really is.

I'll try again in 2023. I'll be senile by then.

I like that movie. I am not sure it was billed as historically correct.
Don't analyze it, just enjoy the story.
It had a happy ending.

I wanted to enjoy it. That's always my first choice and also why I watched it again.

You are in the majority, by the way. For the most part, audiences and critics praised the film when it came out.

I enjoyed the movie, and have watched it a few times. I also like the movie "Hard Eight", and "21" I wish there were more movies based on gambling. I did see one with Catherine Zeta Jones and Bruce Willis about a bookie, cannot recall the name.

Lay the Favorite (?)

I'm quite fond of "Hard Eight." I think that was Paul Thomas Anderson's first film (Both triple Phils are in it.)

Another good one is "Owning Mahoney".
About a regular occasional gambler who wanted to be a high roller.

A true story. The guy did six years for embezzlement.

Treegirl you beat me to it. I love that movie. Another brilliant acting job by PS Hoffman

The Cooler was about as off-the-mark as a gambling movie can get. Of course, it wasn't meant to be a documentary. One of the best in terms of veracity in the gambling scenes (though they were also blown out of proportion) is The Big Town. It's about back-alley craps and the technical advisor was Edwin Silberstang, author of many early books on gambling.