Molly's Game (2017) [Blu-ray]
Biography | Crime | Drama

Tagline: Deal with her.

MOLLYS GAME is based on the true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Her only ally was her criminal defense lawyer Charlie Jaffey, who learned that there was much more to Molly than the tabloids led us to believe.

Storyline: Molly Bloom, a beautiful young Olympic-class skier, ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans, and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Her only ally was her criminal defense lawyer Charlie Jaffey, who learned that there was much more to Molly than the tabloids led us to believe. Written by STX Entertainment

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, April 4, 2018 Molly's Game is one big metaphor. When the title character took a fall at an olympic tryout, her dreams seemed dashed, her hopes dropped, and her life took a completely unexpected turn, upward, it would seem, until the inevitable hard crash brought her back to earth and then some and, she can only hope, eventually back to herself. The film, based on the autobiographical book of the same name, was written for the screen and directed by Aaron Sorkin in his debut behind the camera. The longtime writer/producer's notable works include the stage production of A Few Good Men as well as numerous television ventures such as The West Wing and several distinguished screenplay adaptations including Moneyball, Steve Jobs, and The Social Network. Molly's Game is another insightful, purposeful, and engaging Sorkin film. He's fluid behind the camera, unsurprising for someone who, despite a lack of directorial experience, certainly knows his way around a movie. This is a top-end character study that makes an obvious point but does so with agreeable dramatic and character harmony that binds the story together very well by film's end.

Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) is a genius and was a talented skier who overcame scoliosis to potentially qualify for the olympics, but a freak accident left her unable to continue that career path. Rather than move on with her life and schooling, she chose to be "young in warm weather" and postponed her academic career, moved west, and found employment at a club and an office where she worked for Dean (Jeremy Strong), who ran a small time poker game with his friends. She gained the players' affection and pocketed a healthy amount of cash in off-the-books tips. Eventually and under circumstances beyond her control, she created her own game that drew the attention of high roller celebrities and wealthy businessmen alike. As the game grew in popularity, attracted more and better (and sometimes even worse) players, so too grew her risks, personal and financial, that would lead her on a downward spiral from the top of the easy money life.

The movie's most electric stretch comes as Molly evolves into a poker queen in the first act, though the film is certainly ever engaging and grows more satisfying on a dramatic, rather than an energy, current as the story develops over time, as her evolution as a person, not a gambling facilitator, comes to light. Sorkin, working as both writer and director, keeps the picture flowing with generous speed even at a hefty runtime, and even as the story evolves from her rise to her fall, as she moves from coast to coast to open a new game, and is intercut by scenes featuring her telling her story to her lawyer, it maintains structural integrity and only increases in character depth. The film sort of resets halfway through, as Molly herself must reset, which invariably leads her down a broken path where riches flow but so too do the life-damaging traps into which she so deeply falls. The film is punctuated by an honest, direct, but touching scene in the third act that ties it together with grace and beauty, structurally and emotionally alike, that doesn't reinvent the film but shines an entirely new light on it.

If the movie has a fault, it's that it's a bit too reliant on narration to forward the story and fill in the blanks. It's an understandable crutch given the complexity of the story and only so many minutes to tell it, considering both its structural ebbs and flows and its increasingly dense character arc but evolution to a simpler theme. Chastain, otherwise excellent in the role, offers stilted, uninspired, monotone voiceover delivery, almost rushing through it to release as much information as possible in any of many short-burst time allotments. But the acting work is otherwise first-rate, particularly from Chastain who aggressively pushes into the part's high notes and works through, with precision and depth, the personal falls and follies and rises and retribution. Idris Elba is strong, as always, as her attorney, but Kevin Costner dominates the film in the few scenes in which he is featured as Molly's father, including a shining stretch in what are, arguably, the movie's most critical minutes.

Molly's Game tells an engaging story and performances are fairly strong. It's not just the tale of an illegal poker game but a deeper character exploration that hits notes of loyalty, parent-child relationships, and wayward life drifts, all with scene-commanding construction and a hopeful outlook on life, on recovering from the fall, in more ways than one. Universal's Blu-ray is fine, visually and aurally. Sadly only one brief supplement is included. Recommended.

[CSW] -3.3- The superb fast dialogue hurts this film -- too difficult to follow especially if you're not a poker wizard. I had to occasionally back the film up and stop it to read the subtitles. For such a long film that made it even longer. Still it was a rewarding story and definitely worth watching once. Although the director says that Player X isn't just one person, that he is an amalgamation of several celebrities who Molly wrote about. Player X is thought to be Tobey Maguire because Player X steals her game and that is something the real Molly accused Maguire of. As most pointed out the fast dialog is a bit much But, Jessica Chastain is very talented and was an excellent Molly Bloom. Very interesting story and well done.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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