Watch The Big Town For Free

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's 1957. Indiana small town kid J.C. Cullen (Matt Dillon) wins the local craps games at the gas station. Hooker sets him up with Ferguson Edwards (Lee Grant) in Chicago. Mr. Edwards (Bruce Dern) is her blind partner. Sonny Binkley takes him around to play. He charms nice girl Aggie Donaldson (Suzy Amis) who has a past with Sonny. He goes to a private game at the Gem Club owned by George Cole (Tommy Lee Jones) where Cole's wife Lorry Dane (Diane Lane) dances. He breaks the bank angering Cole. The next night, Cole sets him up with loaded dice. Then gambler Phil Carpenter (Tom Skerritt) from California comes in.I've never been a fan of Matt Dillon coming in hard as a cocky young stud lead. He's too pigheaded to like. He's not as charming as he acts. He needs some vulnerability and more introspection. The production style is limited and the directing style is craps. There are some interesting actors but the story lacks sustained life. It has sections where the story is compelling. J.C.'s gambling with Cole over the two nights has good tension but it doesn't keep it going. It gets tied down with a messy story and an unlikeable Dillon. The movie could be good if it simplified to just them and Diane Lane. But I doubt it.

What a surprisingly good movie this one turned out to be. This is the type of film that I've been looking for ages. Particularly important for me was the fantastic-looking Chicago, which I still keep thinking about. The back cover doesn't do this film justice, it's superb, and in my top-5 for sure.

Considering the big name cast and lavish production I expected a lot more of this film. The acting for the most part is great, although the story they have to work with is mediocre at best. However the film still warrants watching because of the acting and the stars and some and up and coming young talent.

This is Matt Dillon's best performance by far. This shows why everyone thinks he has such talent. But like most of his other work, this movie is dark and realistic about human nature -- in a word, truthful. All the characters have at least two levels -- the superficial level, and a deeper level which is usually darker and more warped, yet never exaggerated. This film also features a masterful performance by Tommy Lee Jones, an excellent job by Suzy Amis, and Diane Lane's most sensational, most lurid, and deepest performance ever in her depiction of a scheming strip tease queen, the ultimate femme fatale, yet a tortured little girl underneath.The script is very good, very insightful, very restrained in its depiction of a lurid underworld of raw emotion. It dramatizes a world of sin and depravity, yet the story is at core a morality play in which decency and morality not only survive but thrive in spite of extreme temptations.A good movie on every level.