I’D pay to hear Al Pacino read from a magazine, and in seeing “Two for the Money,” a sloppy and ridiculous movie that he makes oddly entertaining, that’s just about what I’ve done.
If it were a magazine, the movie would be Maxim, maybe, or a bling-bling version of Sports Illustrated. With its snappy insults, its flat-screen TVs showing nonstop football, its gleaming Ferraris, clubby steakhouses and designer suits, it whips up a guy fantasy to match all those chick flicks where a schlumpy gal gets fought over by rich hunks.
The only fantasy element missing here is the lithe young hotties. Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey), a cocky ex-college quarterback with a knack for picking football winners, and his mentor Walter Abrams (Pacino), a chain-smoking, fast-talking macher with a heart condition who keeps collapsing to the floor clutching his chest, instead form two-thirds of a dangerous love triangle with . . . Rene Russo?
Russo, who plays Walter’s wife, is 51, only two years younger than the Gloria Swanson of “Sunset Boulevard” and 16 years older than McConaughey. It was 10 years ago that she was fired from “Batman Forever” for being too old.
Who still thinks she’s a siren? She does. Russo is an executive producer of the movie, and her husband, Dan Gilroy, wrote it. The two of them shove Brandon’s only other love interest (Jaime King) into mere seconds of screen time. Still, Pacino is always worth watching, and young director D.J. Caruso wisely lets him off his leash. He’s a barking imp who fairly hops around the screen working that deal, chewing out that guy, lighting up that smoke. At one point he even shows up to needle McConaughey in bed, practically perching on his shoulder like a foulmouthed Tinkerbell.
Pacino makes so-so lines witty (calling up the circus to rent an elephant for his daughter’s birthday party, he says, “Is this Barnum or Bailey?”), and witty lines brilliant (“You’re small, Jerry. You belong in a can.”)
He brings so much flash he almost makes us forget that the story, and even the setting, don’t make sense. “Two for the Money” ought to be “The Devil’s Bookie,” but it’s not. Illegal sports betting is a huge, fascinating business that this movie doesn’t explore. Instead, Walter legally sells sports tips to bettors who then use the hunches when they place bets. When his firm’s tips are wrong, clients pay nothing. When they’re on the money, clients are supposed to pay, after the fact, 10 percent of whatever they win from their bookies. So Walter gets rich off the honor system? No one would ever pay, and if they wanted to use the service again they’d just get a buddy to call up and then stiff the company again.
Bookies use the honor system, of course, but they back it with implicit threats. Walter’s business is legit, without any hired goons. So Brandon isn’t selling his soul; he’s simply showing up at work. Some interludes featuring a sinister tycoon with a dodgy accent (Armand Assante, more like a parody of himself than ever) go nowhere because there is no reason to break Brandon’s legs. Brandon doesn’t owe him money. He says that if the rich guy doesn’t like his advice he should go elsewhere, and it’s hard to argue with that.
The movie also doesn’t seem to know a lot about its subject. We don’t hear much about how winners are picked beyond hunches like “they always play the Fish tough” or going with what a random office boy thinks, and on the phone Brandon is heard trying to nail down whether an injured player is listed as “probable” or “doubtful.” If you know the game, you know there’s a category between these two, “questionable.”
A bigger mistake than anything in the film, though, is its release date. These are the holy days of sports. Fans stop going to the movies because we’ll be home every night sweating and cursing at the little men running around on our TV screens.
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TWO FOR THE MONEY
[** 1/2] (Two and one-half stars)
Low-scoring game. Running time: 122 minutes. Rated R (profanity, sex, violence). At the E-Walk, the Kips Bay, the 84th Street, others.