‘Two for the Money’ lags
Movie: “Two for the Money”
Director: D.J. Caruso
Starring: Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo
Genre: Drama
Grade: C
When an ex-football player with a knack for picking winning teams gets a phone call to help a “sports services” company, he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. When Brandon (McConaughey) is hired for the job, his hot streak continues and he lives in the lap of luxury. That is, until his streak ends and people begin losing money and when people lose money, people get mad. Walter (Pacino) gets a little upset with Brandon.
Although there are many elements of this movie that may interest a wide variety of viewers, such as, sports, gambling and for you girls, Matthew McConaughey, the movie overall seems to drag on for the two-hour runtime. Also, though the focus on the movie is on sports gambling, it isn’t played out to its fullest potential.
Al Pacino seems to be in the movie only because he is Al Pacino, he doesn’t bring the whole Pacino persona to the screen with him.
Cracking a few jokes here and there, it just isn’t what is expected of him. However, McConaughey played the kind of character I would expect him to play.
With the occasional taking off the shirt, which was probably due to contract obligations, he played the role of “rags to riches” fairly well.
In the end, the movie seemed to be on the right track, but just never crossed the line needed to make it great. It had that right story ideas and the right actors, but one plus one just doesn’t equal two.