BY MIKEY MIGO
I caught this movie on IFC this past week. It looked decent enough. I like most of the main cast, it’s a comedy, and the content seemed fun. The story takes us to a college where three friends decide to start their own sports gambling racket. It’s from the director who brought us “Happy Texas”. That was a fun movie so this HAD to be fun too, right? Nope. I understand the blood, sweat, tears, and pain that go into making a movie so I always try to be positive about the lower budget independent movies. To me, a great indie will always be better than a great blockbuster. Give me “Clerks” or “Rivers Edge” or “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Thumbsucker” or any good indie flick over something like “Avatar” all day every day. I have too many issues with “Bookies” to give it a full suggestion. The three friends, Nick Stahl, Johnny Galecki, and Lukas Haas have dialogue that seems really forced and unnatural. Their character development is pretty bag. Stahl is the good guy who hooks up with the good girl (Rachael Leigh Cook), Johnny Galecki is the one who goes crazy on drugs, extravagance, and excess, and Haas is the nerd that’s just kind of there. This movie served one purpose for me. It made me realize that Nick Stahl is one of my least favorite actors. Outside of “Disturbing Behavior”, he just annoys me when on screen. Galecki puts in a pretty awesome performance and shows a side of him that I’ve not seen anywhere else. He’s a lone bright spot. Haas typically does well and did fine here, it’s just it felt as if his character was kind of useless after they got their computer system in place. He’s missing from all the drama and it feels like a huge waste of his skill and time. Of course, they end up getting in over their head. The mafia starts to get on them about shutting down their operation. It’s been done before and much better. The direction is kind of boring. It featured all the fast forward-slow down a-typical indie movie shots and editing. I guess in form of “craft”, it’s well done but it’s trying to be something it’s obviously not. The scary part about this movie is that it was written by the guy who penned the upcoming “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”. I was looking forward to that movie and it looks like it could be a lot of fun. Writer Michael Bacall has acted in A LOT of cool movies so I’d like to assume he’s got good taste and is an alright guy. Sadly though, now that I know the same guy who wrote “Bookies” is behind the script I’m A LOT less thrilled about this Michael Cera joint. If there is one thing about an independent movie that’ll tear me away is cliché. This movie was all cliché and would of served better with a PG-Rated script, female leads, and being put on Lifetime as a Movie of the Week. Don’t waste your time unless you’re REALLY interested in seeing Johnny Galecki rock the house in a bad movie.
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