Shade is set in the world of poker hustlers working the clubs and martini bars of Los Angeles. The tale unfolds as a group of hustlers encounter "The Dean" and pull off a successful sting that results in their pursuit by a vengeful gangster. This is probably one of the best movies about Poker with a very simple plot and some pretty talented actors like Sylvester Stallone, Jamie Foxx, Thandie Newton and Hal Holbrook as far as acting, script and story go they were pretty good the only part of the movie that was stupid was that scene with Rodney Rowland's character named Jeff but it's still a pretty cool and fun film and the ending was pretty awesome and it made sense how Vernon played his friends also Sly is great as ever and that's why i'll give it a 10/10.

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in his filmography in order, I come to a supporting role, in his best movie in years, 2003's Shade. Plot In A Paragraph: Vernon (Stuart Townsend) Miller (Gabriel Byrne) and Tiffany (Thandie Newton) are small time con artists, who cross paths with Jennings (Jamie Foxx) and attempt to con "The Dean" (Sly Stallone) in a high stakes poker game. In his best movie in six years (since Copland in 1997) Stallone plays it closer to his real age (albeit going from one extreme to the other with the hair dye) giving one of the most effective performances of his career. With his eyes gazing steadily from his strong face reminding us what a splendid actor he is when he is allowed to escape from his stereotyped roles. For his brief time on screen (he doesn't appear till 40 mins in) Stallone brings style to the proceedings. There are some good individual performances, but the main cast lack any real chemistry with each other Stuart Townsend looked destined for big things (but it never quite happened) Gabriel Byrne does what Gabriel Byrne does, whilst Jamie Foxx is effective too, and poor Thandie Newton looks great, but she isn't a good actress, and is often embarrassing against the stronger actors. In his one scene, Hal Holbrook (who I always like to see) goes through the motions of performing in a part that's has no lines worth speaking and Tony Burton (Duke in the Rocky movies) has two small scenes, unfortunately none of them are with Stallone.

decent movie if you know nothing about cards. if you are a card player, which now a days everyone plays Texas holdem, you will notice that this movie wasn't written well according to how cards are actually played. i haven't seen this movie for like 5 years so i don't remember everything that was wrong but someone should have pulled out a poker rulebook when making this movie. for example 1. they announce they are going to play a game of no limit Texas holdem, but instead are playing some variation of 5 card draw instead.2. throughout the movie when the guy with the bigger chip stack moves all in and says "o im all in now too and you cant cover my bet so i win", NO. in real life poker if the other player cant cover the larger chip stack the pot will only go up as far as what the small chip stack can cover, in this movie Stallone has a more money than the other guy and is like "you need to come up with more money or i win the pot...doesn't happen like this in poker like i said its been a few years since i saw this movie but next time someone decides to make a movie about poker, please read a rule book and try to make the movie follow the rules of the game (like in rounders) because this movie is so full of goofs when it comes to how poker is played

I won't lie, I thought it was a pretty good movie. But I have seen two distinct versions of it! I purchased and watched the DVD version of this movie, and then acquired (for backup purposes), watched, and deleted an .avi version of this movie, only to find that it was quite different. Most of the music was different, the story had a few significant changes as well, and the "chapter" headlines that appear in the DVD version were not on the other version. I would say that the non-DVD version or this film was superior. Does anyone know of a second cut that legitimately exists, and if not, what happened to it? I would like to get my hands on the non-DVD version, and the movie would have gotten an 8 from me if that was the only version out there.