Lights Out (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered back on episode 162 of the podcast, our "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature" episode, almost a year ago now, and I've been meaning to get it on the site as well. Beyond the Adkins factor, we've been meaning to get more Grillo on the site too--or fire up the Grillo, as we like to say here. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Lights Out has Grillo as a former soldier who has just left the service, and is looking for work. After beating up Kevin Gage and some other ne'er-do-wells at a bar, he catches the attention of Mekhi Phifer, who gets him involved in the underground fight game. But it turns out Phifer's sister is into mob guy Sage (Dermot Mulroney) and the cop who's working with him, Glenn Close (Jaime King), because her abusive ex-boyfriend hid a duffle bag full of money at her house, and they want it back. Now Grillo doesn't just need to win some fights, but he needs to bring these baddies down, and to help him do it is old Army buddy Scott Adkins. Will he prevail?

This isn't horrible. It's directed by Christian Sesma, and his films have a higher floor, which helps in this sea of options we have on places like Tubi and Hulu. I think from a story standpoint, there's a lot going on, which hampers it a bit. The concept itself is one of those I'd say has enough material for an episode of a syndicated action show, and there are two ways to get something with that much material from 42 minutes to 90s minutes: you pad the hell out of it, or you add a bunch of stuff, and this one went for the latter. Still, the fights were good, Grillo gives us another solid lead, Phifer, JuJu Chen, and Mulroney were fun, we had the novelty of an Adkins appearance, plus Jaime King was playing Glenn Close! (More on that later.) Overall, this is a fun 90-minute time killer.

We're now at five Grillo films on the site, which isn't a lot when you consider how much DTV stuff he's done, but when you look at it all, he doesn't co-star with a lot of names like Adkins or Dolph, he tends to be the star power himself, which means we need to carve out specific reviews for him, something that I think will come more often as we start to finish off some of the old guard--though if they keep making movies at the rates they've been, it may not be as easy. We do have two others of his in the can right now, Black Lotus and A Day to Die, plus I'm looking forward to Hounds of War finally being available on streaming. What we get here is more confirmation that Grillo is a great lead in these movies, and with the baddies we've seen him play, he's someone who can slot into a lot of different roles and elevate a DTV film beyond its budget. The other interesting thing is it looks like James Gunn's DC reboot is utilizing him more than the MCU did, which is DC's gain and Marvel's loss, but also means it could be our loss as well if his profile starts to extend further beyond the DTV realm. We'll see, but in the meantime he has a lot of DTV back catalog for us to get to.

Mr. Adkins is at 29 now, so he's on the cusp of the 30 Club. I wanted to try and get him and Michael Jai White, who's at 28, in around the same time, but with three more Adkins films I have in the can to review, he might not only get in ahead of White, but end up a few films ahead of him in the process. This is a very small role, so had he already been at 29 I would've tabled this for a bit, because it wouldn't have been worthy of his 30th film. This is the second time we've seen him in a Sesma film, the other being a small, yet larger than this, role in Section 8, which also had Dolph. He's still pumping out a few movies a year, and even though some are like John Wick 4, which we probably won't review, most of them are DTV, so once he passes the 30 Club threshold, it won't be long before he's in the 40 Club too. Even with a small role, they all count the same, so the next time we see him here he'll officially be in the 30 Club.

Christian Sesma is a director who's been on my radar for a bit, especially for films like this that have a lot of names, and a look and feel that gives them a higher floor than most modern DTV. He's far down the list of directors whose movies we've done, as this is only his third, but I see a bunch that could be reviewed which could get him closer to some of the other names sooner. He has a couple with Michael Jai White, for instance, that are definite reviews just because they have White in them. The other thing is almost all of his stuff is on either free streamers or ones I'm subscribed to, so I can move through his filmography a little quicker. Compare that to Jesse V. Johnson, who I have 8 films left to cover, but I think only three of those 8 are on streamers; or Isaac Florentine, whose most recent is still rent only, while Sesma's most recent is already on Hulu.

Finally, the kids always talk about something not being on their "bingo card," and I'd say for Ty and me when we were discussing this, Jaime King playing Glenn Close was not something we had on our bingo cards. What was the mindset there? Was it "we can't afford Glenn Close, but this should really be her part"? Or did King say "I'm only playing this part if I can play her as Glenn Close." And she's a corrupt cop, so it's an Evil Glenn Close. It just added this bonkers element to the proceedings. When she was in Out of Death or Code Name Banshee she wasn't playing Glenn Close, so it's not like this is a thing she does all the time now. I guess as a one-off I'll go with it, and maybe it makes sense, because Close is such a great actor, who wouldn't want to emulate her--even if this is a bit All About Eve if she is.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu, which I think is a good deal. It has its flaws, but overall it's solid enough to get you to the church on time if you have 90 minutes to kill and you're looking for something to watch. And also remember to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this, number 162 in the archives, "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16368898

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

King of Killers (2023)

This is one Ty and I covered on a podcast episode back in November, number 185 in the archives, which we paired with the new Chuck Norris film Agent Recon. Just look at that cover, it looks promising, doesn't it? What could go wrong? In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

King of Killers has Alain Moussi as Garan, family man by day, contract killer by night. Unfortunately his two worlds collide one evening when he's pulling a job, and his wife just happens to be in the same area and dies after she catches some strays. A year later, as Moussi tries to pick up the pieces, he's approached by Gianni Capaldi, who makes him an offer he can't refuse: come to Tokyo to kill the mysterious Drakos, aka King of Killers, aka Frank Grillo. We say he can't refuse, because a la James Ryan's kickboxing association in Kickboxer 5, if you refuse, you die. Anyway, Drakos has the killers attack him one at a time in his booby-trapped maze, but Moussi thinks that's a bad deal, so he and the other killers go in as a team instead. Will they make it out alive?

Ty and I weren't all that enamored with this, and I think the reason is that cover looked so sweet and carried so much promise. Yes, it had it moments, which we appreciated, but there were also some dead spots, which is something a film like this can't afford to have. The biggest issue though was the whole premise. One, the greatest assassin ever doesn't just take on other assassins one on one, which is what we'd want, he creates this whole booby-trapped space so he has a massive advantage. It was a plot hole so massive that Moussi had to call it out. If your characters are calling out your plot holes, maybe the story should be rewritten. The other thing was the James Ryan kickboxing association construct. "If you don't want to kill Grillo, you're dead." Wait, why? These are assassins, shouldn't the job be enough of an enticement? And why do they need to be killed if they don't want to participate? All that said, we did have some nice action sequences, Moussi brings it, Grillo is great as the baddie, and the supporting cast, including Capaldi, Stephen Dorff, and personal favorite George "Rush" St-Pierre, all help elevate the proceedings; plus we're in an out in 90 minutes, which isn't bad. Sure, it's not bad for a time killer, but that cover and that cast told us this could be something more than a time killer, and that's where the disappointment comes in.

This is now three films on the site for Alain Moussi, the other two being his two Kickboxer reboots, and like those films, Moussi brings it with some fantastic scenes. There's no reason why he shouldn't be the next Scott Adkins, the talent and screen presence are there. The problem is, when I look at his IMDb bio, I don't see a lot, especially a lot that we can do here on the site. If he had been born in the late 50s/early 60s, he'd have had his own DTV franchise in the 90s, something as iconic as Bloodfist or China O'Brien or Gary Daniels's PM three Rs, and to some extent we can say his Kickboxer reboots are that, but as good as they are, they aren't as iconic as those other things I listed. The first one wasn't bad, but the second one was bloated and had too many moments where it was sauteed in wrong sauce. And I think that's the problem here, while it wasn't bloated, too much of it was sauteed in wrong sauce. Looking at a film that did this idea right, Accident Man, it let Adkins cook more than this lets Moussi, and the supporting cast was used better. What if instead of the booby-trapped/forced to fight scenario, they had Moussi fighting different assassins to make his way to Grillo? Each scene building on the first, it could've been closer to that classic I'm talking about.

We're also at three films for Frank Grillo, but unlike Moussi, we have an addition three films in the can that I could review of his, plus he has a ton of stuff in his back catalog that we could review. The problem is, a lot of that stuff doesn't look like stuff I want to review, and I don't know that Grillo is at the point on the site where I'd just be reviewing a movie because he's in it. With that in mind, I looked back at some names who grew into that level. People like Dolph or Don "The Dragon" Wilson were at that level before I started the site, but names like Gary Daniels, Scott Adkins, and Michael Jai White grew into that, and I think what got them there were some amazingly iconic films. Bloodmoon for Daniels, plus the three Rs of PM; Avengement for Adkins, plus the Universal Soldier sequel; Blood and Bone and Black Dynamite for White. Boss Level wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as any of those, and other than Avengement, I don't know how much modern DTV is making stuff at the level of those other films anymore, so he may not even get his chance to make something that iconic. On the other hand, while I may not be watching a film just because it has Grillo, I am more likely to watch it if it has him in it, so that helps, and he does elevate this film a bit just by his presence, which is always a good thing.

So who is the most-tagged member of the cast? That's right, Stephen Dorff, who's in his seventh film on the site. On the all-time Stephen/Steven/Steve list, that puts him fourth, behind Steven Seagal's 39, Steve James's 12, and Stone Cold Steve Austin's 9. Between the fact that James is no longer with us, and Austin doesn't seem to be making more DTV flicks, Dorff could eventually make his way to second all-time among Stephen/Steven/Steves, which I know everyone is following with bated breath. We don't get a lot of Dorff in this flick, something that's probably to be expected, but what we get is sufficiently Dorff-y to make it work. With how junky the DTV world has gotten in the 2010s and 2020s, Dorff is always a welcomed sight, no matter how much we get of him. Like he says in his old Blu e-cigarettes commercials, "we're all adults here."

Finally, this film uses Julian Sans One font for their credits and location titles. Why does that matter? Because I use that font for the covers and spines of my books. I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, but if you've bought any of my books, and then watched this, you may have recognized it. Is it possible the people making this film read my first novel, Chad in Accounting, which I released in 2020, saw the font on the cover, and were like "that's what we need in our movie!" It's also possible it was one of the ones that came after too, like 2021's A Girl and a Gun, or 2022's Holtman Arms, but not 2023's Don's House in the Mountains or 2024's Nadia and Aidan, because they both came out after. If you're asking "but what about your short action novel, Bainbridge, which also came out in 2023," for that cover I didn't use Julian Sans One, I used Raleway, but who knows, maybe we'll see a film that uses that font, and I can review it and use this paragraph to advertise my books again, right? Speaking of which, the link to my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, is below.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This isn't a horrible 2020s 90-minute DTV time killer, but the cover and cast promised us much more than that. Perhaps there will come a time when we don't need to settle for just "pretty good DTV time killer," when DTV action will get back to the level it once was, but, alas, we're not there now. And for more on mine and Ty's thoughts, check out episode 185 of the podcast.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14057604

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

  

Operation Seawolf (2022)

This is one I rented back in December when I had a discount from my cable company. I figured that would be it and I'd review it here, but then it appeared on Tubi and Ty from Comeuppance and I decided to take advantage of that for the podcast, so he watched it on there and we discussed it on our episode titled "A Dolph and Hotch UnSub with Grillo Cheese," because we covered this and Shadow Wolves with Hotch from Criminal Minds. Anyway, we now covering it for the site too so we have it here.

Operation Seawolf has Dolph as a WWI sub commander who now, in the closing days of WWII, is sent on a mission to attack America's homeland. He gets a new sub, which is under another command, and now that he's taking over, they're not so sure they want to follow him. At the same time, Frank Grillo is giving orders from a chair in an office in the US, and he's telling Hiram A. Murray's anti-sub ship to find and take this submarine out. Will our man Dolph prevail? And should we be rooting for him since he's a Nazi?

This was actually good. More a drama than an actioner, but also a lot more Dolph than you'd expect from the cover--again, perhaps the fact that he's a Nazi may have meant we couldn't have him front and center on the cover. And they do attempt to mitigate the Nazi thing by having Dolph be someone who's against Nazis but wants to do his duty for his country, plus by having Hiram Murray's all-black unit being the one hunting them down. I think they do a better job with the former, but unfortunately they don't develop Murray's character and his crew enough to make them enough of a factor. What makes this all the way through is Dolph's performance. It's fully invested, and involves a lot of screentime, the latter of which is something we haven't from him in a long time--maybe since 2016's Don't Kill It as far as his DTV work. The Dolph performance combined with the ability to screen it free on Tubi makes this a definite watch.

We're now at 67 films for Dolph, with one more left in the can, 4Got10. Unlike Seagal though, who we finished up recently, Dolph has other ones coming up that will keep us busy before we need to dive into ones like Small Apartments or Seal Team or even Sharknado 5. The thing is, most of his new stuff involves him taking on smaller roles, which makes sense at this stage in his career, but something like this where he plays a mature character whose story is anchoring the film is a nice change of pace. Yes, the screens I took show him looking haggard or falling asleep, which might make you think this is more silly than serious, but it works, and it works because of Dolph's performance. As we make our way to getting him into the 70 Club, we'll probably see more smaller good roles, so when we get something more robust like this, we need to hold onto them like grim death.

We're firing up the Grillo again for the second time on our site. This is no Boss Level, what we have here is primarily a sit down role, where from time to time he stands up and uses a pencil to mark things on a map. He's supposed to be a WWII Commander, but he has a 2020s haircut and nicely sculpted modern five o'clock shadow. That's okay though, I'd rather have Grillo doing this role than anyone else, and the haircut and five o'clock shadow aren't as bad as Mickey Rourke's cowboy hat in War Pigs. We do have some more Grillo in the can, so this won't be the last time we fire up the Grillo, but it'll be interesting to see how much of his stuff we get on the site with all the other names we need to get to. He's a lot of fun, even in a small role like this, so even if we only see him every six months or so, it's better than nothing at all.

Ty and I remarked that perhaps the most surprising thing about this after the size and quality of Dolph's role, was the fact that we had an interesting sub movie! Most of the time DTV sub movies turn into the dreaded sub slog--you know the type, "excitement" by repetition with multiple scenes of commanders looking off somewhere with grim expressions on their faces saying "fire," while young male supporting characters push some buttons and look into some periscopes, while footage of torpedoes cruising through the water head toward a target as we're supposed to be watching with bated breath for something to happen. Where this works is the story is more compelling, and Dolph's performance makes it even more so. Then when we get action, more of it is above ground than below, which also helped. When you've been doing this as long as we have, eventually you see everything, and a sub movie that's not a slog is now one we've finally seen.

Finally, as we've been doing, we'll give Dolph another paragraph due to the volume of films of his we've covered on the site. Unlike Seagal who has a couple films in development, but no idea when they're coming out, Dolph has two films slated for release this year, plus what looks like three more DTV flicks and three big screen flicks coming after that. I don't know that he'll continue that pace, but we know he'll hit 70 this year, and if he keeps pumping out a few films a year, he could hit 80 in 2026--if we're still writing the site then. The thing is, his influence and ability to move the needle hasn't slowed much, meaning when he has something new come out, we need to prioritize it over other stuff we might have in the can. So not only does he have more then ten films between him and the person with the second-most films, Gary Daniels, but there's no way for him or anyone else to catch up when I'm a position where I need to review Dolph's new films before anyone else's. It's a massive legacy, one that will probably never be surpassed.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can stream this free on Tubi. Between the story and Dolph's performance, that's more than worth it. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode where Ty and I discussed this, episode 120 in the archives, "A Dolph and Hotch UnSub with Grillo Cheese."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13429928

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Boss Level (2021)

A few weeks ago I had Brett and Ty from Comeuppance on the podcast to discuss the great Robert Ginty, and on that episode Brett mentioned seeing this, and said it wasn't a bad deal. Since I thought I'd never done any Frank Grillo on the site before, and because it's Memorial Day weekend, I figured why not fire up the Grillo and make it happen? It looks like there are over 100 critic reviews of this on IMDb, so there's a good chance a friend of the site has done this too, but I may have missed it in my initial scan.

Boss Level has Frank Grillo as a former special forces soldier who's currently in a time loop where he's forced to relive the same day over and over. At the same time, a group of assassins are out to get him every time he wakes up. Why is this happening? How can Grillo get out of it? The answer may be in his ex's (Naomi Watts) science project, which she's working on for a boss who's not only evil, but also played by a raging anti-Semite and racist. So Grillo has to keep living the same day, gathering clues along the way, hoping to finally solve the puzzle and break out of this horrible Groundhog's Day scenario. It's like a real life video game--except in a movie, which isn't real life...

 

This is really good for about the first hour or so. It has all the elements we want out of a modern actioner: great fights, great car chases, and a great hero in the lead. And then at around that hour mark, our hero seems to have figured it out and wins, only to discover he hasn't, and another 30 minutes is tacked onto it. It's a fascinating trend I've been seeing in a lot of new action movies, what I call the "enough for a 43-minute syndicated TV show" effect. This could have been a great episode of Time Trax or Cobra, or even Arrow or The Flash, but the need to push it to 90 minutes is where we lose it. I can't explain too much of what happens without giving it away, but essentially, if you're following the slider bar when you're watching, at around 55 minutes or so, the film seems to hit a natural conclusion, only to be told it doesn't. By the same token, issues aside, when we're talking about big action that's not tied to any billion-dollar franchise, this is a good start, and I feel like it can still be a fun way to kill 90 minutes.

As I mentioned above, I thought this was our first Frank Grillo film on the site, but it turns out that's not the case, he was also in the Bruce Willis film Lay the Favorite. Either way, this definitely won't be our last. He's fantastic here in the lead, between the action and his natural charisma. According to IMDb, he was born in 1965, so this puts him right around the Gary Daniels/Mark Dacascos age for an action star; also, he has a ton of other stuff we could do, so we can make up for the lost time of us having left him out before. This film has some other big names in it, like Naomi Watts, and I think the true test of whether or not someone has "It", is whether or not they still have the presence onscreen to carry every scene they're in no matter who they're acting opposite, and Grillo definitely has that. Now that the summer is here, I think we'll be firing up the Grillo a lot more.

 

Among the other characters, I really liked Selina Lo as Guan Yin. Every time she killed someone, she said "I am Guan Yin, and Guan Yin has done this." The problem I think is that we had a bunch of other characters like hers that weren't anywhere near as developed, so we were left with a lot of starts that weren't finished. I don't know how you fix that when you only have 90 minutes, but maybe what it is is you shrink the pool of assassins--or what if, from a sci-fi angle, they're all Guan Yins? They just clone hundreds of her. I guess then you'd run into budgetary concerns if Grillo has to fight two or more at once. Either way, for one of the few characters that were fully developed, I think it was a good decision to spotlight Lo's, because she did really well with it.

One thing this movie does, whether intentionally or not, is it delves into the macabre element of video games where you have multiple lives. Dying a violent death is not fun, but Grillo's character experiences it 200 times or so. Talk about PTSD, how do you recover from that? The idea I guess is that Grillo's character is so mentally tough that he can handle it, but we never think when we're playing, say, Ninja Gaiden, what it would be like if the character actually experienced every death on the way to winning the game. It's a huge departure too from the standard action movie, where the hero at worst gets a flesh wound on the shoulder or leg, and ultimately takes down all the baddies and survives. Imagine if every video game adaptation did what this movie does? It would fun be to watch a Ninja Gaiden live action film where Ryu dies and comes back to life.

 

Finally, anyone who's been rockin' with the DTVC for sometime knows that I'm from New England, which means I'm a huge fan of the team everyone loves to hate, the Patriots. Seeing Gronk in this was perfect as a Pats fanboy, even if he left the Patriots to join the Buccaneers and won a Super Bowl with them this past season. It wasn't Gronk's fault, anymore than it was Brady's, that Belichick drove him out of town. What hurts more as a Pats fan is that they didn't win more here. Look at everything the Pats spent for the 2021 season. Couldn't they have spent a little of that in 2019 to get Brady over the hump so they at least win that last game of the year against Miami and secure the first round bye? Once they got that bye they could have cruised to another Super Bowl, and maybe Brady doesn't leave in 2020. Sorry, I know people who root for teams that haven't ever won don't want to hear me complain that the Pats didn't get a seventh.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. Beyond the tacked on last 30 minutes, this movie isn't horrible. If anything, it's a great showcase for what Frank Grillo can do, and I'm excited to fire up the Grillo more in the future. As of this writing, you can stream this on Hulu, which I think isn't a bad deal. Full disclaimer though: as I mentioned above, the villain is played by a real life raging anti-Semite and racist. The fact that I'm reviewing this and to some extent recommending it is in no way an endorsement of him. In my mind the movie works in spite of him, not because of him.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7638348

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Lay the Favorite (2012)

We continue our Bruce Willis Week with Lay the Favorite, a film based on the true story of gambler Beth Raymer, played by Rebecca Hall.  As with many Willis DTV flicks, there are also a bunch of other names here, including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Vince Vaughn, Laura Prepon, and Joshua Jackson.  I was also excited to see a film about sports gambling, because I love sports-- though I have only ever gambled on them in Las Vegas.

Lay the Favorite follows Hall as Beth, a young lady from Tallahassee who moves to Vegas in search of a job as a cocktail waitress.  When those jobs aren't forthcoming, she takes a job with Bruce Willis, who is a famous Vegas bookmaker and gambler.  Turns out she has a thing for numbers, so this should be the perfect gig, except Willis's wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, is the jealous type, so Willis has to fire Hall.  Hall then meets Joshua Jackson, moves out to NYC, and gets a job making bets for bookie Vince Vaughn.  What happens though when she gets involved with some shady characters in the city that never sleeps?



This one didn't work.  It's the kind of thing that sounds great on paper, and as a true story would probably be great as a documentary on cable TV, because it is interesting.  The problem is, from a cinematic angle, we have very little-- or very superficial-- conflict until the very end, meaning there's nothing driving the story for us.  We have no sense that winning or losing means anything with the betting, no sense that the choices these characters make will have any real consequences.  For two seconds we have the intrigue of Hall pursuing a relationship with Willis, but once Zeta-Jones steps in, it's over before it really starts.  Despite having some really great characters played by some really great actors, if nothing is ultimately happening until the very end, there's not much we as an audience can do, no matter how much we want to like a movie.

I didn't know what to do with Willis in this either.  I loved the scenes when he was freaking out about losing bets, smashing flat screens and firing everyone.  The awkward poignant moments with Hall and Zeta-Jones, not so much.  I think that's another problem here though, the real life Dink (that was the guy's name) is probably great, and hearing things from him directly probably sounds compelling and entertaining; that doesn't mean he works on-screen.  But I guess again I'm left with the conclusion that he probably sounded like he would translate well in a movie, and it just didn't work.



When I was out in Vegas in early 2013, I stayed at the Rio.  I gotta say, it doesn't quite look as nice in real life as it does on screen-- though Vegas in general doesn't look that nice.  I have yet to see a movie that takes place in Vegas that shows the click-click guys, who are ubiquitous along The Strip, trying to hand out little flyers for all the local strip clubs.  I wonder if the casino lobby prevents that from happening.  It is a very interesting thing to see movies about Vegas after having visited.  Like a Leaving Las Vegas makes more sense, and I guess something like this feels a little more down-to-earth, because Vegas is less glamour and more, well, Vegas.

Catherine Zeta-Jones joins the long line of Oscar winners to be featured at the DTVC-- and the second one in Bruce Willis Week, after Forest Whitaker in Catch .44.  She doesn't have a big part, and it appears she's playing a woman older than herself, which is also very interesting.  Like Willis's though, I think it's another one that seemed great in real life, but on-screen doesn't quite wash.  She's not bad enough or crazy enough or even endearing enough to work on any of those levels.  In real life that's probably how she really is, and is probably very nice because of it; but in a movie, she needs to be more of one aspect than any of the others to be entertaining, and because she wasn't, it didn't work.



Look who's playing basketball on the far right there.  It's Curly from Baller Blockin', Jerry Katz.  Only, he's listed as "Jerome Katz", playing "Some Guy", and he has two separate imdb pages.  Come on Jerry Katz, get your agent in there and clean that up.  We need more of you on-screen.  You should've had a much bigger part in this, like maybe winning a bet and saying "who's the baller now, wardy?"  Here's to you Jerry "Jerome" Katz, you're one of the good ones.

Unfortunately this is not.  What seems like a great idea based on an interesting true story just didn't work in a dramatic movie setting.  As I said above, maybe a cable TV special, with interviews from the actual people involved, combined with some dramatic reenactments would've been better.  Even the great cast couldn't save it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132449/