Two for The Money 2005

 2005

Starring
Al Pacino
Matthew McConaughey
Rene Russo

Plot: Once big college football star Brandon Lang misses his window into the NFL because of a serious injury and becomes a sports handicapper who becomes the best ever until his ego gets too big and goes on a fall. He begins to realize he is losing his family and friends and his new boss who treats him like a son and is costing people the life earnings.

The name of the movie is basically a metaphor for it's self. The two main characters are in this only for the money. They don't care about how their decisions effect anyone including each other. Sports betting is the most illegal and profitable business in the world today. It can make you or have you wearing  a cement Kimono if your dealing with the wrong person.

We see star acting from one of the best in the business in Pacino.  He is the villain in this movie who we end up hating him even more because he tries to squeeze the life out of McConaughey like a lawyer tries to squeeze the blood out of a stone. The two of them play off of one another so well in this film you would think they had done this before.

McConaughey and Russo make for good co stars in this film. Russo plays Pacino's wife who has had to put up with the gambling and drinking and abuse so many times and like a battered wife stays with him no matter what. McConaughey plays the once great colligate football star who loses it all to injury (like many real people before him) and is down on his luck with a dead end job. However like any good movie (even though this is based on truth) he rises to stardom and like Mo Green his eyes get too big for his stomach and fall to the 6th layer of hell.

We are all pulling for him to make good and win everyone's money back and champagne will rain from the sky. However he can't win all the money back for the people he lost unless they BET.  There are very few movies about sports betting. This one makes us realize the real effects gambling has as a whole on a single person and the effects it does to everyone who loses. All in all a 7/10 rating for this movie.