Watch Four Dogs Playing Poker For Free

Too much of everything

Sorry, this movie sucks

Brilliant and touching

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Four friends, Julian (Balthazar Getty), Audrey (Olivia Williams), Holly (Stacy Edwards), and Kevin (Daniel London), are recruited by bar owner Felix (Tim Curry) to steal a statuette from a wealthy Argentinian collector for crooked dealer, Mr. Ellington (Forrest Whittaker). Having successfully pinched the statuette and shipped it to America, the group's celebrations are interrupted by Ellington, who advises them that he has been informed that the statuette is not aboard the ship. Telling the group he will require $1 million compensation from them if it doesn't arrive or he will have them executed, Ellington later proceeds to have Felix bumped off to show he's not kidding. The frantic four, on discovering the statuette is indeed missing, hit on a bizarre plan whereby each will take out $1 million life insurance and one of them will kill the other – the deal being only the killer – who is determined by the draw of a card and a safety deposit key – will know who the intended victim is to be.This movie blew it for me in the first twenty minutes. Having pulled off an incredibly dull heist at a society wedding, we learn that the international art thieves recruited by Curry are in fact an insurance clerk, a shoe salesgirl, a barman, and a druggie, none of whom had ever stolen anything before. Yeah, right. Then, upon being told by Ellington that the statuette – which Curry wrapped in paper and left on top of a crate at the docks! – had gone missing, no-one had the sense to ask how he came by this information. But, hey, if they'd done that they might have resolved everything in the first half-hour, and then we wouldn't have been able to enjoy the 'brilliant' idea first-time writers Shawn David Thompson and William Quist dreamed up. The idea itself – the paranoia arising out of one of four people having to kill the other with only the killer knowing who the victim is to be – isn't a bad one, but is almost impossible to work into a movie without using some pretty tortuous plot devices to shoehorn it in. An experienced, quality writer might at least manage to entertain us anyway, but the script for this movie is pedestrian at best and downright bad most of the time. The characters are strictly one-dimensional, given no background whatsoever, and all come across as a bad lot who are simply getting what they deserve, so we don't care who the killer or the intended victim is. And, if they had behaved true to what minimal characterisation the writers have given them, they would all have high-tailed it the moment they discovered they weren't the killer and therefore had a one-in-three chance of being the victim. Even the supposed twist at the end comes as no real surprise.The only good things about this movie are old pro's Tim Curry and Forrest Whitaker (who must have both been short of decent offers back in 2000), but they're on screen for maybe fifteen minutes at the most. The rest of the cast are uniformly unmemorable which, unfortunately, this movie isn't going to be, because it's so bad it's going to keep coming back like a dodgy prawn supper. This is a dire film, whose only appropriate fate is to gather dust on the shelves of the nation's DVD rental outlets.Cool title, though.

Previous comments seem to be either one of extreme hate or pleasure. I find the extremes fascinating. I think this movie was average. Not great, but worthwhile watching. One that you need to watch twice to get the point. I found no part of it boring. The use of poker in the title has to do with the bluffing, faking, lying and not showing all of ones cards. On the whole it is much better in terms of the story than most action films.If plots making sense was a requirement for a good movie, then I guess there are very very few movies worth watching. The plot for example of Master and Commander, a movie I really enjoyed, was based on an absurd disregard for the navel power situation in 1805 wherein Britian had obtained complete mastery over the oceans (e.g., Battle of the Nile, 1803). So why should we attack Four Dogs for a gimmicky premise. Name a movie that doesn't involve some gimmick or suspension of disbelief to get the ball rolling.To me the only unexplained part is why the bad guy wants a million from them, but that might also be part of the double crossing.In Four Dogs, the fact that so called friends agree so easily to kill one another was one of the points -- their friendship wasn't worth a half million. It must also be kept in mind that they were being manipulating into agreeing with the idea and it was done so subtly that it is not until you see the movie for the second time that you can see the manipulations that are going one. There's actually a lot of subtly in the movie. But also notice how several members of the group were all prepared to double cross the rest. The main double crosser however did give at least one of them a chance. It is very doubtful that the insurance scam idea would work, but the main characters didn't clue into the main problem with it -- back dating the payments on the policies -- thats a whole lotta fraud. But its a mute point, there is never any mention at the end of the film about cashing the policies in! Suggesting that the whole insurance scam was part of the doublecrossing plots and a bluff. It isn't important how fast the money will be paid out, whats important is that they players in this high stakes game, think that cashing in the policy on one of them, will save the rest.The fact that the ships crew had a Mexican accent (I'm assuming that the Argentinian commentator meant accent, not language, cause the language is the same), isn't that surprising since the ship has an English name and is headed toward Los Angeles (home of a very large Mexican population) -- so its more likely to have a Mexican speaking crew than an Argentinian crew.The whys or practicalities of the movies aren't really the main issues. The most interesting part of the movie is the crisis, the cut throat solution they come up with, how they are manipulated into the solution, and how the solution unravels (as planned).There a very interesting thing going on when one of the characters asks another if he could really kill her.

One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time, particularly since the idea of it is quite a good one, with a lot of potential. Without the interesting basic premise it surely would have rated a 1.So what's wrong with it?1. 45 minutes of boring, badly acted, unconvincingly plotted, standard 'art-theft' action before the main plot line is actually introduced.2. Shockingly weak dialogue - every bad thing 'sucks'. And sure there are lots of movies where every other word is fk or a variant thereof (which is fine if authentic) but here, almost exclusively in the latter half, the fk word is so clumsily and obviously inserted into almost every line that it becomes very tedious3. Really poor characterisation. Are the characters smart or stupid? You can't really tell because the authors never decided - most of the time their actions and motivations don't ring true at all.4. One glaringly obviously plot development - (no spoiler) but if you end up watching this movie to humour someone you love (the only excuse) then you'll know what's going to happen as soon as...5. Do characters still have to smoke cigarettes? The year is 2002, not 1952 thanks very much.Enough said. This movie is crap - pure and simple. One day someone may use the idea to make a decent movie - but it won't be anyone who worked on this movie.

This movie is burdened by a screenplay that is so atrocious, that no other element of the film could rescue it. The first five minutes of this film are very promising; we are shown an apparently savvy group of heisters in an exotic location in the middle of an operation. It is interestingly photographed, the actors appear competent and appealing, it is nicely directed, and well edited. After this the problems with the script came so fast, that I no longer paid attention to the other elements of the film, however my impression is that everything fell apart at once. I knew that the movie was in trouble as soon as the actors started goofing around on their radios in the middle of the serious and dangerous operation they were performing. When the object of the heist was cavalierly turned over to some nameless ship's purser, who I wouldn't have trusted with five cents, I resigned myself to the fact that I had wasted my money. When surprise, surprise, the object is apparently lost and the thieves have to figure out a way to make it right, the savvy heisters transform into a group of whimpering morons whose only solution is to kill one of the group for an insurance fraud. This was the end of `Four Dogs Playing Poker` for me. I rarely stop watching a film in the middle, but I couldn't justify wasting anymore of my time on this ridiculous movie. This film requires more than a suspension of disbelief, it requires a suspension of the fact that you possess a brain. If you are looking for a small, yet very worthwhile crime movie try `Thick As Thieves' with Alec Baldwin or `Jerry And Tom' with Joe Mantegna. Something more quirky but equally worthwhile is `Coldblooded' with Jason Priestly.