? November, 2022
Actor Russell Crowe tries his hand at directing again with “Poker Face,” a sort of weird vanity project that manages to be boring even though it morphs tonally and narrative-wise into a different movie approximately every 15 minutes. Crowe co-wrote it, and stars as billionaire Jake Foley, who made his money first playing online poker, and then by developing a military-grade surveillance program.
Depending on which part of the story you step into, the movie is a “Stand By Me” type of boyhood friendship; an Ayahuasca trip to visit a shaman (Jack Thompson) for spiritual guidance—during which it’s revealed that Jake has terminal pancreatic cancer; a heist thriller about a group of art thieves breaking into Jake’s house to steal his art collection; and a family drama about Jake getting his daughter and cheating wife financially squared away after his death. Furthermore, it’s a story about a high-stakes poker game that could change the life of the winner. “Poker Face” is all these things, and is also therefore actually sadly none of the above….
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