"Booze, Broads and Blackjack" is entertaining and easy to watch. Movies like these are the reason cinema was created for the masses, and proof God loves us. No better way to waste a work night (or an epidemic) than plopping down and watching art happen. Director Rickey Bird has dropped several easter eggs throughout the movie as well as several cameos by himself and writer Carl Nicita. "Booze, Broads, and Blackjack" is just an all-around enjoyable movie. The Hectic Film crew made the impossible happen once again, even though they got their film trailer stolen like ten times during production (even saw a video of it being dragged off even though it was chained to a car).
Making a movie based on a book can provide huge challenges. Authors don't have to worry about the cost associated with multiple scenes and wardrobe changes, not to mention exotic foreign locales. When laying ink down on paper, or keystrokes on the magical glowing box that brings me endless joy, it's easy to dream up islands floating in the sky inhabited by blue creatures, huge castles with dragons flying overhead, a spaceship infested with alien life, or even blowing up much loved cultural landmarks throughout the world. Authors don't have to plan to fly a cast and crew to Las Vegas, nor do they have to worry about feeding and lodging arrangements. Set building and CGI is just a stroke of a pen to them.
Director Rickey Bird and Writer Carl Nicita
At the same time, book to film adaptations create an opportunity to enhance the original story. Stephen King movies have greatly benefited from legendary directors improving on the source material. King's movies wouldn't have done so well without great talent behind the camera; "Carrie" (1976) had Brian De Palma, "The Shining'"(1980) had Stanley Kubrick, "Creepshow" (1982) had George Romero, "Christine" (1983) had John Carpenter, "Misery" (1990) Rob Reiner, both "The Green Mile" (1999) and "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994) were done by Frank Darabont.
"Booze, Broads and Blackjack" also took the opportunity to improve on the book. In particular, the character of Savannah in the book was too consequential and random. While reading the book, I really wanted her to turn into the psycho stalker from "Play Misty for Me" (1971) starring and directed by Clint Eastwood. Also fixed was the too cool for school, mister perfect, Jack King. Flawless characters are boring to watch. One reason "Breaking Bad" (2008-2013) was so good was because every character was frustratingly flawed. Jack transformed into the lovable spoiled screwup, who does everything he shouldn't. The movie fixed a couple plot points that didn't quite work. The book also had a bunch of awesome music interwoven into the story, songs that even a major Hollywood movie would have had issues getting the rights to, which this film did a great job working around. The music provided by Ghost Coast Productions, while not as legendary as the classics named in the book, did a great job filling the void.
Another reason "Booze, Broads and Blackjack" is so enjoyable to watch are all the beautiful women in the movie; Felissa Rose "Sleep Away Camp" (1983) and "Killer Rose" (2020), Erica Rey "Machine Gun Baby" (2018), and Sarah French "Rootwood" (2018). All too often, movies lacking million dollar budgets have problems attracting beautiful talent. Beautiful people are so much easier to watch. Plus a bunch of cool transition scenes helped the viewing experience.
Also helping the viewing experience are Vincent Pastore and James Duval. Mr. Pastore has had a long and legendary acting career that jumped back and forth between big-budget Hollywood and indie productions. He did a cameo in an awesome movie reviewed here a couple years back called "Pitching Tents" (2017), check it out if you missed it. Because let's face it, we have seen all of his epic roles. Mr. Duval's Generation X social commentary cult classics led an entire generation into the decline of western civilization as we now know it. Seriously, if you haven't watched "The Doom Generation" (1995), otherwise known as Rose McGowan's first real role, or "SLC Punk" (1999), having lived in Salt Lake the repressed Mormon teens come out when the sun goes down (shhhh don't tell the church), still have fond memories of seeing punk bands in cramped basements.
Sean is a loser who spends his days drinking at the bar his ex-works at. Once a promising MMA fighter, now he's a joke, with no job except chasing away paying customers. After rolling a couple of wannabes (and thoroughly pissing off his ex) an offer comes in he can't refuse. Three fights, with the winner walking away large, the losers...... not so much.
Shot in Connecticut on a tight eighteen-day schedule that had a snow storm hit midway through the shoot. With a budget of $750,000 its impressive what director Jacob Cooney and Producers David Gere, Charles Lago, Christopher Johnson put together. The names of the cast members read like a Hollywood blockbuster; Tom Sizemore, Vincent Pastore, Kevin Nash, and Chuck Zito. Christy Carlson Romano is a face most will recognize from the Even Stevens (2003) and a couple of the Cutting Edge movies (2006 & 2008). It is very well shot film, there were a couple really good scenes I had to rewatch. Creative use of camera angles and light throughout.
Sweeney Photography
Poor Jamie Nocher who plays Sean, not that he is a bad actor it's just being surrounded by legends in this movie, he isn't on their level. Plus, fight scenes in a movie with a budget of less than one second of an action sequence in a Mission Impossible film isn't going to show much. The best fight scene in any movie was They Live (1988), the budget was four million dollar and they practiced the fight for three weeks (longer than it took to shoot this movie). The script doesn't help him out much either. Being the lead with so much screen time anytime Sizemore shows up for thirty seconds he steals the scene. Sizemore is one of those actors like Woody Harrison that always play interesting characters showing up in small roles all over the place. Watch Mother Wolf (2016) to see him just take a movie over, he's only in the movie for five minutes. Chelsea Vale is distractingly way too beautiful to play the girl-next-door type. She has a ton of movies coming out in 2017 be interesting to see her in a bigger role.
It is really hard to have a 'fight' movie without a budget. Without money, not much in the world of movies gets done, not choreographing the fights, practicing the fights, shooting from multiple angles, not much makeup. Stallone has talked in interviews about how long it took to film fight scenes in the 'Rocky' movies (1976-infinity). It took days to get a couple minutes of run time. Rocky (1976) also had a bad ass theme song. Blood Circus could really use some music. Oh, and Rocky had a budget of 1.1 million dollars of 1976 money, on top of a badass theme song for its training montage. If we have learned anything from South Park (1997-infinity+1) you have to have a training montage. Overall it's an enjoyable movie, that without its aforementioned budget constraints could be a major Hollywood release.
