First Hit: A wild ride with a Jewish, gem selling, obsessive gambler.
This film starts oddly because we move between the inside of a large black opal to the colon of gem and watch seller Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler). Eerily some of the camera images reflect the similarity between both, and I guess that was the point.
We follow Howard on the streets of New York, gregariously saying “hello” to many individuals he comes across as he makes his way to his store through the double door security system these small gem sellers use. I want to note that these doors become part of the story. Getting buzzed in by his beautiful assistant and girlfriend Julia (Julia Fox), he heads to his office in a very anxious, nervous way.
The one characteristic behavior Howard displays throughout the film is one of being chased, corralled, and almost being caught but finding a way to talk himself out of being beaten up or killed each time. This is the ride we are on with Howard throughout the film.
As a gambler that owes his brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian) over $100K, and other people money from his sports gambling losses, we see him in sequences of pawning stuff, giving people watches as collateral, and making wild, complex sports bets.
Arriving at his desk in an early scene, he receives a Styrofoam box, which has him very excited. Opening the box, there are two fish, he squeezes each of them looking to feel something. We know this is an illicit shipment of something. He finally cuts one open to reveal the sizeable uncut opal we saw, and were inside of, in the opening sequence.
His plan is to auction the opal off for nearly a million dollars, and it will free him from the money he owes to bookies and to finalize the divorce his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) while providing for his three kids, and make his girlfriend happy.
Enter Kevin Garnett, the basketball player. He’s brought to Howard’s store because of their mutual friend “The Weekend” (The Weekend) wanted Howard to do business with Kevin. Howard shows him some of the stuff in the store and in a moment of pride, shows him the uncut opal. Kevin is mesmerized by the opal and asks to take it for a night. Reluctantly, Howard agrees if Kevin gives up his Boston Celtics championship ring as collateral. Thinking he can get away with it, Howard pawns Kevin’s ring to make a quick bet hoping to capitalize a big win and pay everyone back, get the ring out of hock, auction the stone, make a bunch of money and live a happy fulfilled life with his girlfriend.
However, we know compulsive gamblers rarely finish first, and the film follows this big setup until its end.
The scenes where Howard is having difficult conversations with his wife, bookies, or employees, are amazing and probably not easy to do. He seems to never hear what the other person is saying and continues the conversation as if the person whom he’s speaking with understood and agreed with what he has said. This is rarely the case and so there are many scenes where people are merely talking over each other. Listening to these two different dialogues and attempting to follow both conversations during a shouting session was both amusing and challenging.
I thought the scenes were very well set up in that they seemed to always have an edge that everything was going to come off the rails any minute. There was a franticness in everything on the screen that kept the film moving along at a rapid clip despite its 135-minute running time.
Sandler was perfect for this role, and I could easily see why the Safdie brothers wanted him for the part. Like the film “Punch Drunk Love,” Sandler can bring a desperate dark edge to his characters and make it totally believable. Here the monster is his addiction to the big win. Maybe an Oscar-worthy performance. Garnett was terrific as himself. That might sound funny, but often sports stars are awkward when being filmed, but Kevin was dynamite. The Weekend was perfect as the sly, trying-to-make-a-buck, go-between. Two scenes stood out; one in Howard’s office when The Weekend discovers Howard has been selling, hawking, or giving away the watches that he’s stored in Howards safe. The other scene that stood out was in the nightclub when Howard confronts The Weekend about the opal. Fox was excellent as Howard’s lover. The scenes in the apartment and in the Vegas betting room were well done and it’s the latter where she stood out. Menzel played Howard’s wife as a sarcastic person who is disengaged from her relationship with her husband. The look on her face when she opened their Mercedes trunk with Howard inside was priceless. Bogosian was outstanding as Howard’s brother-in-law and loan shark bank. Ronald Bronstein, Benny Safdie, and Josh Safdie wrote an engaging script. But it was the directing and acting of Sandler and the rest of the team that made this film work.
Overall: This film left me with mixed feelings, but I loved the story and the wild ride.