Hit Me (2005)

That was an excellent one.

Powerful

Overrated and overhyped

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I was very disappointed. The movie was filled with poor acting and scripting, an especially wooden performance from the female lead Camden Brady. Far fetched plot and not mathematically probable, as any true card counter would agree. One additional error I noted was that the Blackjack table at the casino showed the dealer using six to eight decks of cards, with the premise of the whole movie and the card-counting algorithm based on the fact that the casino was still using only one deck of cards. The only saving grace was that I didn't have to pay to rent this movie, since Hollywood video went to all you rent for $15 per month last year. Oh, and yes, Camden was very easy on the eyes.

I sometimes pick brilliant movies when I stray away from the main stream. This time, I didn't.The editing is sleep inducing, the plot leaves you wondering, the locations suck, everything about this movie screams "low budget". A low budget shouldn't be a reason to avoid a movie, but this stinker makes it so obvious. Example - the "mansion" where the load shark lives looks like anybody's back yard...I honestly think the blonde actress who played the lead female character turned up thinking that she was auditioning for a blue movie - that surely is the only type of role that she would normally be cast in.Avoid it, at all cost.

This is a pretty mediocre movie. Hollywood never gets gambling movies right (Rounders excepted), but they did OK for the most part. Early stuff was good. Later depictions of real gambling were totally lame. Double agents, million dollar bets in a small joint, all that stuff was just plain wrong. But the ending line was wonderful. Worth a rent just for that. What was the striper scene about? Nice rack on the one we saw, but what was the point. I'd love to see Camden Brady's pair, but the best we got was teaser. Max Herholtz did a much better acting job than some have given him credit for. Especially early on. By the way, no casino in the world, ever, under any circumstances, lets a dealer lose 4 mil without changing everything. new dealer, new floor man, new cards, new cocktail waitress, everything. Hollywood never gets gambling movies right.

I was a bit nervous about this flick. Having just watched Crossbones, another low-budget no-name film, with the *bad* acting to match, I was hesitant to raise my expectations very high for, or even rent, Hit Me...But being a big Ocean's Eleven fan, I decided to give it a shot anyways. Fortunately, as luck may have it, this is a surprisingly entertaining movie with (generally) more than half-ways decent acting; in fact, the lady that plays Alicia is the only one I felt that delivered a slightly sub-par (but not terrible) performance. There are a few scenes that have very abrupt endings, with no music fades, and some so short that you're left wondering why they were even added, or why they didn't extend them a little bit. But beyond all this, the cinematography is pretty good, and the movie is very entertaining--especially considering that I got it as a $2 rental from the local convenience store. Therefore, I give it a 7/10, not because it's a great film, but because it's fun, entertaining and there's even a little gratuitous nudity. Plus you have to take into account the fact that you'd probably run up a higher bar tab on New Year's Eve than they spent on this movie...Rent it or even buy it if you can get it for $10 or less.