The Grand (film)
The Grand | |
---|---|
Directed by | Zak Penn |
Written by | Zak Penn Matt Bierman |
Produced by | Jeff Bowler |
Starring | Woody Harrelson Cheryl Hines David Cross Chris Parnell Richard Kind Dennis Farina Werner Herzog Ray Romano |
Cinematography | Anthony Hardwick |
Edited by | Abby Schwarzwalder |
Music by | Stephen Endelman |
Distributed by | Anchor Bay Entertainment |
Release date | March 21, 2008 |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $3 million[1] |
The Grand is an improv comedy film directed by Zak Penn. The film has an ensemble cast including Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson, Chris Parnell, Werner Herzog, Jason Alexander, Dennis Farina, David Cross, Gabe Kaplan, Michael Karnow and Cheryl Hines along with several real Las Vegas poker stars.[1]
According to Penn, the film is styled after those of Christopher Guest[2], where each actor is given direction concerning their character, and the actors are left to improvise each individual scene. The plot of The Grand was somewhat more open-ended than Guest's work, however. The focus of the film is a poker tournament played at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas between the characters in which real poker matches were played by the actors as the scenes were filmed. The film's script did not specify the winner of the tournament, and the ending of the film was determined by the actual game played on set.[2]
The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment.[1]
The film opened in limited release in the United States on March 21, 2008, opened in wider release on April 4, 2008, and is now on DVD.[3]
Plot
Jack Faro (Harrelson) is a drug using, serial marry-er, lovable guy who is just out of rehab and enters The Grand: a huge Texas Hold Em poker tournament in Las Vegas that his grandfather started years ago. Jack is in the tournament to get money to keep his deceased grandfather's (Corbin) casino called The Rabbit's Foot. Also playing in The Grand are twins Larry (Cross) and Lainie (Hines) Schwartzman who have been put into competition together their whole lives because of their father (Kaplan), Harold Melvin a genius with social issues who loves the movie/book Dune and lives with his mother (Harris), Andy Andrews (Kind) a nice guy who is amazing at online poker and comes off as an amateur, Deuce Fairbanks (Farina) a older poker player who has been in Vegas since its early days, and The German (Herzog) a ruthless, cheating man who likes to kill small animals.
Cast
- Woody Harrelson - "One Eyed" Jack Faro (The Sentimental Favorite)
- Cheryl Hines - Lainie Schwartzman (The Woman)
- David Cross - Larry Schwartzman (The Bad Boy)
- Richard Kind - Andy Andrews (The Unknown)
- Chris Parnell - Harold Melvin (The Lonely Genius)
- Dennis Farina - Deuce Fairbanks (The Old Timer)
- Werner Herzog - The German
- Ray Romano - Fred Marsh
- Barry Corbin - Jiminy "Lucky" Faro
- Michael McKean - Steve Lavish
- Gabe Kaplan - Seth Schwartzman
- Andrea Savage Renee Jensen
- Estelle Harris - Ruth Melvin
- Michael Karnow - Mike Werbe
- Judy Greer - Sharon Andrews
- Jason Alexander - Yakov Achmed
- Brett Ratner - "Sob Story" Barry Blausteen
- Hank Azaria - Mike "The Bike" Neslo
- David Pressman - Melville "Murph Murph" Murphy
- Tom Hodges - Tim "Tiny Wonder" Woolrich
- Shannon Elizabeth - Toni
Pro Poker Player Cameos
Critical reception
The film received mixed to favorable reviews from critics. As of March 21, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 42% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 36 reviews.[4] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.[5]
References
- ^ a b c 'Grand' lands in Anchor Bay - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety
- ^ a b Interview: Zak Penn's The Grand (ComingSoon.net Blog) - ComingSoon.net
- ^ "The Grand (2007) - Release dates". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
- ^ "The Grand Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
- ^ "Grand, The (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
External links
- The Grand at IMDb
- The Grand at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Grand at Metacritic
- The Grand at AllMovie