Matt Dillon plays a hayseed crap shooter with unbeatable luck who, in late 1950s Chicago, joins a Windy City syndicate and falls hard for the femme fatale wife of an unscrupulous gambling boss. Despite some errors in casting this otherwise familiar urban crime story is, at least in presentation, a lot smarter than it may first appear. The relative youth of the two leads is fatally inconsistent with the very grown up crime and passion scenario, but director Ben Bolt wisely underplays the neo-Noir mood by refusing to rely on the trendy smoke-and-strobe-light pyrotechnics so common in modern thrillers. The gritty urban setting is instead recreated in all its cheap romantic glamour, and the script has its arcane gambling slang down pat, but the film is something of an anachronism in today's over-hyped market: a competent (if minor) drama, made thirty years too late.

I was attracted to this movie when I looked at cast list, but after I watched it I must admit that I felt a bit disappointed. The main problem of this movie is that actors aren't capable of holding this movie on their back. Why? Because of bad script. Although Dillon, Lane and Jones try very hard to take this movie on another level, there is no innovative storytelling and the direction is too ordinary. So for Matt Dillon fans this is watchable movie, just like for admirers of beautiful Diane Lane. Legendary Tommy Lee Jones is always great but this is not movie for him; far below his level. So if you get hooked up by this great cast watch it but don't expect anything big or extraordinary. The only thing that you'll remember about this flick is Diane Lane scenes; rest of it is very forgettable.

This is Matt Dillon's best performance by far. This shows why everyone thinks he has such talent. But like most of his other work, this movie is dark and realistic about human nature -- in a word, truthful. All the characters have at least two levels -- the superficial level, and a deeper level which is usually darker and more warped, yet never exaggerated. This film also features a masterful performance by Tommy Lee Jones, an excellent job by Suzy Amis, and Diane Lane's most sensational, most lurid, and deepest performance ever in her depiction of a scheming strip tease queen, the ultimate femme fatale, yet a tortured little girl underneath.The script is very good, very insightful, very restrained in its depiction of a lurid underworld of raw emotion. It dramatizes a world of sin and depravity, yet the story is at core a morality play in which decency and morality not only survive but thrive in spite of extreme temptations.A good movie on every level.

terribly underrated with matt dillon and tom skerritt, good backdrop for solid story and some memorable lines, well acted and well cast, tommy lee jones and bruce dern make you hate them with passion