I was dumbfounded when I read that Rebecca Hall was the daughter of Sir Peter Hall, and his former American wife. She carries this movie brilliantly, wearing tight, tiny shorts throughout. Her enthusiasm is infectious and her affection for Dink (Bruce Willis) utterly credible. The whole gambling scenario is educative and astonishing, and Rebecca's career in it completely credible. I'd do gambling if I had half a million to start with: reckon I could double it before long. Particularly I'd hire women like Rebecca Hall to participate in my operation. I'd make sure they all wore short-shorts the way she does. And they'd all have to have long slim legs like hers. All hail to Rebecca Hall for pulling off this great picture with such brio and style. See this movie next!

Beth passes from erotic dancer to become the help of an important bet dealer in Las Vegas, but the small advances that she makes to her boss will risk their collaboration because of Dink's jealous wife.What's with the small rating? OK, the truth is that I liked the first 40 minutes or so, but after that the movie becomes boring and uneventful. Plus we are not accustomed to see Bruce Willis in that kind of "soft" character, I mean without a gun in his hand it seems like he is not the person we are all used too. The story is not bad but maybe unrealistically and not too detailed. The actors give their best performances but could not save the poor script. Also the ending wasn't that good. With more effort the whole film could have been more watchable.

Lay the Favorite ends on a happy note, but as statistics prove over and over again there are more broke and desolate people as a result of addictive gambling than there are happy winners. I enjoyed the solid acting in Lay the Favorite, and there was a Disney like theme involved, but some of the movie content is for an adult only audience. The movie revolves around a young ambitious girl named Beth (played by Rebecca Hall), who is trying to find a job that will fulfill her as a person and that excites her. Making house calls with her boom box and stripping for strange men just does not fill that void for Rebecca so she moves out to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. Through a few chance meetings she ends up working for a private bookmaker who bets only on himself and whose name is Dink Heimowitz (played by Bruce Willis). Dink is assisted by two of his cronies and a few female runners who lay his bets off for him with the Vegas bookmakers. Dink decides to hire Beth as one of his bet runners because she is young, bright, good with numbers, and initially brings Dink some good luck. Dink has a beautiful wife (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) who does not appreciate the young bet runners that Dink prefers to hire and she lets Dink and the girls know to stay clear of her man. One of the other big gamblers who aspires to run his own bookmaking ring is a guy named Rosie (played by Vince Vaughn). Dink will deal with Rosie but he doesn't trust him because he believes all gamblers are only looking out for themselves.I did enjoy the movie, but I felt it provides an unrealistic view of the life of the heavy bettor. Lay the Favorite portrays Dink and Rosie as two bookies who always seem to come out on top, and have no worries in the world. Although this is a comedy so it is not to be taken seriously I have a soft spot for gamblers as I have seen too many fall in to despair and a life long rut of quiet losses and sudden hibernation until they come in to a bit of money again so they can get back on the cycle of gambling for another run. Beth eventually leaves Dink's employment and she also leaves her down to earth boyfriend Jeremy from New York (played by Joshua Jackson) and goes to work for Rosie on a sunny island. Beth quickly learns that Rosie is not a very nice man and that Rosie is who Dink said he was. Beth realizes that she needs to get back to New York and help her boyfriend Jeremy out of any potential criminal charges related to the gambling book that she asked Jeremy to oversee while she worked with Rosie on the islands.The movie ends with a lot of lives having to rely on the outcome of a basketball game. This is by no means a Disney movie but it may as well have been since the movie's ending had everyone involved in a love fest. Heavy gambling as outlined in Lay the Favorite should not be portrayed with characters as nice and clean as in this movie feature, because this is not reality. Gambling has negatively affected too many people's lives and their extended families lives as well. There is a good Disney message with the underdogs attaining victory in this movie but keep it real folks, gambling is an addiction and an illness which calls out for a cure, not a romantic comedy.

"Lay the Favorite" has many dissenters, most complaining that it's completely unbelievable. It's true, it is. Beth (Rebecca Hall) is a ditzy bimbo who quits her job as a stripper and moves to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. A great idea! Instead, as soon as she arrives, she gets a very lucrative job as a sports bettor for a bookie who isn't a bookie since bookmaking is illegal. She's a genius with numbers and words.She's also capable of getting guys to do whatever they think she wants. They need to do the thinking since she's too dumb to even know what she wants. The kicker to this story of an over-sexed, ditzy bimbo, numbers genius, sports-betting millionaire, is that it's a true story. I decided to watch the YouTube video of the real Beth Raymer reading from her memoir which this film is based on to see if Hall accurately captured her varying characteristics. And she did. She does the hair twirl and the dumb girl giggle as she describes the kings of sports gambling giving her job after job after job.I'm one of the few who liked Rebecca Hall in this. So different from her usual indie fare. She has to ooze sex and play beautiful even though she has never really been described that way before. But in order to like this movie at all, you need to care about this floozy. Other than her ridiculous free ride through life, nothing really interesting happens to her. Her first job in Vegas is with Dink (Bruce Willis) who owns Dink Inc. She loves him, he loves her … mind? Yeah, right. Apparently he does. So when she gets herself in trouble along with a nice, smart successful guy (Joshua Jackson) who doesn't seem to mind throwing his life away for her, he comes to the rescue. Personally, I found Hall's sexy naiveté and Willis' extreme gambling entertaining enough to keep watching. However, the movie doesn't seem to play the unfortunate reality that this is a true story for laughs. When there's a story too unbelievable to be true then you should be making fun of everybody who allowed it to occur, instead the film just wanted the audience to go along for a fun ride. It is somewhat fun, it's also very unbelievable, and ultimately, pretty stupid.Who Might Like This: Anybody who likes seeing ditzy bimbos succeed in life; people who like watching unbelievably true stories; fans of Rebecca Hall.