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Storyline
A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for "tells", or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex. Written by
John J. Magee <magee@helix.mgh.harvard.edu>
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Taglines:
Human nature is a sucker bet.
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Goofs
Margaret Ford takes her smokes from a package of unfiltered "stubby" Camels, but the actual cigarettes she uses are longer (probably Pall Malls) so they'll "read" better on screen.
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Quotes
Mike:
Everybody gets something out of every transaction.
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Soundtracks
This True Love Stopped For You (But Not For Me)
by
Rokko Jans
Sung by June Shellene
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Celebrated playwright David Mamet's debut as a film director may be, with all its stark formality and icy pessimism, too cool and detached for its own good. There's no disputing his talent as a writer, but he does little to adapt the rhythm of his stage dialogue to the screen, and his story of confidence tricksters is a con in itself, leading viewers to expect perhaps more than they'll get. Once the plot begins to take shape it reveals some fascinating details about the ways in which professional swindlers take advantage of human nature, as a noted psychiatrist (Lindsay Crouse) learns after being seduced by the games people play (on themselves and each other). The script sets up a clever dilemma without ever providing a clear solution but this isn't, after all, meant to be a caper. The film is more a character study, but with a hole in the middle: the characters all seem to exist in an isolated vacuum, almost as if, despite the natural settings, they were (surprise) performing on stage.