With such a great title and the premise while a little far-fetched being also brilliant, Four Dogs Playing could have been a very good film. Instead for me it had its fair share of good things but fell short, being a moderately entertaining film at most.Four Dogs Playing Poker is stylishly made, looking every bit the brooding thriller type of film, complete with atmospheric and not too dim lighting and settings that suit the film well. It's competently directed, the music does have intensity and the story while less than perfect is a lot of time diverting and not too dull. Another thing Four Dogs Playing Poker does well is that it has a fun cast, with the high points being Tim Curry, who's excellent(if very underused) in a more serious role than usual, and an intimidating Forrest Whittaker. Olivia Williams brings a variety of emotions to her role and Balthazar Getty is very charismatic in his.Sadly, Four Dogs Playing Poker does come up short in other areas. The script is quite weak, being rather underdeveloped and sometimes confused, leaving more questions than answers with some "comedy" parts instead feeling flat and misplaced. Despite the cast giving their all the film does a not particularly good job making their characters interesting, with almost all of them being one-dimensional and clichéd and the most experienced cast members(i.e. Curry) not being in long enough). Four Dogs Playing Poker is hurt by the predictability of the second half, weakening the fun and suspense that the film started off with, which also becomes increasingly preposterous, in want of more explanation and lacking in momentum. By the time the twist came I found myself not caring very much for who the perpetrator was.Overall, great title and premise but doesn't quite deliver as much as it could have done. Disappointing, but hardly a time-waster. 5/10 Bethany Cox

murky and not terribly clever. Tim Curry and Forrest Whitaker couldn't save it. With a world full of movies to choose from... despite the alluring title... don't bother Now the silly IMDb program is telling me I need ten lines or my review won't appear. Isn't THAT special. Not only that I can't use junk words. Back to the movies. It is not a very good movie. Your time is better spent elsewhere. IMDb. I'm in IMDb. That should tell you something. Ever since it became dead cheap and technically EASY to make a movie, all sorts of trash has turned up.So, get your friends, get a camera and have at it. Your efforts will probably be a lot sadder than Four Dogs Playing Go Fish. It is not easy to make a good movie. Believe me. It's not even easy to write a good, short review and leave it at that. Such is life. Reminds me, Ned Kelly with Orlando Bloom and whatsisname was great. He's barely dead and already I can't remember Heath Ledger's name. Also, see him in Casanova.. really good.

I bought this DVD for 2 euro 90 at a gas station. So my expectations where not that high. When i buy a movie like this with some famous actors, I don't expect it to be good, but you never know. Am i watching a mistake of a famous actor. I really love Forest Whittaker, and after watching the movie nothing is changed about that. He probably red the script and saw the possibilities. Anyway Looking from this angle, i always expect to stop halfway the DVD and continue doing something else. Because the price was so cheap, that there would be no other option than a bad movie This movie is indeed not fantastic, the acting is poor and over the top, but it is a movie which keeps you watching. In fact i felt some fear watching the end. So my 2 euro 90 where well spent. But i do agree that the end result could have been much better. Intriguing movie, not very well done, but amusing and worth watching! I still try to understand if i understood the whole movie. But who cares for 2 euro 90

This movie is burdened by a screenplay that is so atrocious, that no other element of the film could rescue it. The first five minutes of this film are very promising; we are shown an apparently savvy group of heisters in an exotic location in the middle of an operation. It is interestingly photographed, the actors appear competent and appealing, it is nicely directed, and well edited. After this the problems with the script came so fast, that I no longer paid attention to the other elements of the film, however my impression is that everything fell apart at once. I knew that the movie was in trouble as soon as the actors started goofing around on their radios in the middle of the serious and dangerous operation they were performing. When the object of the heist was cavalierly turned over to some nameless ship's purser, who I wouldn't have trusted with five cents, I resigned myself to the fact that I had wasted my money. When surprise, surprise, the object is apparently lost and the thieves have to figure out a way to make it right, the savvy heisters transform into a group of whimpering morons whose only solution is to kill one of the group for an insurance fraud. This was the end of `Four Dogs Playing Poker` for me. I rarely stop watching a film in the middle, but I couldn't justify wasting anymore of my time on this ridiculous movie. This film requires more than a suspension of disbelief, it requires a suspension of the fact that you possess a brain. If you are looking for a small, yet very worthwhile crime movie try `Thick As Thieves' with Alec Baldwin or `Jerry And Tom' with Joe Mantegna. Something more quirky but equally worthwhile is `Coldblooded' with Jason Priestly.