Read Mixed User Reviews for Molly's Game

6

GreatMartinJan 12, 2018

(Possible spoilers.)

Watching “Molly’s Game” seems to be the same as listening to a ‘Talking Book’ with its almost wall to wall narration by Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom. In Aaron Sorkin’s director’s debut, he makes the mistake of many(Possible spoilers.)

Watching “Molly’s Game” seems to be the same as listening to a ‘Talking Book’ with its almost wall to wall narration by Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom.

In Aaron Sorkin’s director’s debut, he makes the mistake of many first-timers not following sometimes less means more with this 2 hours and 20 minutes film. As the writer of the screenplay, as he is known for his rat-a-tat dialogue in his television scripts, the talk is fast but in film his characters are more stationary.

Jessica Chastain does a good job of showing how Molly Bloom became a tough, mostly unfeeling, woman when as a child her demanding father, played by Kevin Costner, training her for the U.S. Olympic Ski team, constantly tells her she isn’t good enough. Her two brothers are overachievers, just as her father is, so when she has a freak accident skiing in competition, ending her career, she looks to do something else, entertaining the idea of law school but, instead goes to Los Angeles. Taking jobs to support herself while living on a friend’s couch she eventually becomes an assistant to a man who runs an exclusive poker game for high rollers.

Molly soon moves to New York where she outsmarts her former boss and starts her own high stakes poker games having the rich and famous as her clients. She runs everything by the books legally besides offering the players more than other operations ever did in the way of luxurious snacks, drinks and comfort. Again there is nothing illegal about her operation such as though she has beautiful women working for her attending bar, being dealers, making the men as comfortable as they can they never exchange sex for money or anything else.

At one point, due to pressures of running 2-3 all-nighters a week, she starts taking drugs to get sleep and to stay awake which makes her sloppy and inadvertently gets mixed up with the Russian mob and gets caught by the FBI.

She seeks out Charlie Jaffey, played by Idris Elba, a sharp lawyer, to defend her and though he can get her a great deal with the Feds he isn’t able to convince her to name names. As she points out to him she didn’t name names in the book she had published for which, if she had, she could have gotten an advance of a million dollars instead of the thirty-five thousand she did get and she wouldn’t now.

The film is based on that book, “Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker.” In the film Molly comes across as a smart, forceful, sharp, hard as nails woman but, in only one scene, shows that she has any feelings and that is in a talk with her father who relates an incident that is never even hinted at before that talk. Men fall in love with her but she rebuffs them though she will offer help to men she sees ‘drowning’, in over their heads, becoming gambling addicts, giving cash and/or credit when needed but her feelings belong to only her. Aaron Sorkin does keep the picture moving but too many times, talking/showing the poker games, has Molly saying too much, so rapidly that not only does it get monotonous it also becomes incomprehensible at times. There are one too many skiing scenes and, though touching, an unnecessary storyline regarding the lawyer and his daughter.

Jessica Chastain is being talked up as a Best Actress Oscar nominee, deservedly, as she really is the main reason to see “Molly’s Game” plus, if you are a fan of Sorkin’s writing, as I am.… Expand

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5

RalfbergsMar 4, 2018

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. First of all, in my opinion this isn't a poker movie - for me as a poker enthusiast, this movie has poker in it, but mainly it is about Molly running a game for rich people and one of those people trying to use the situation to make money and ruin other people lives. About Molly herself - it feels like she is this big shot, having control of rich guys etc, even though in reality I don't know what she can be so proud of here. Being in control of men as she is a woman? I mean she basically just organised games and got tips from it, like a waitress (as they didn't take rake, which is illegal in US). In my opinion that isn't really a big achievement and I don't know why this story is so huge suddenly. Anyway, that's my opinion - the acting was good in this though, the story has interesting moments, but overall not for me.… Expand

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4

ldeorioApr 15, 2018

Did I watch a movie or did Jessica Chastain just read me a book? Overlong and overwrought, it was an altogether tiring experience.

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6

LamontRaymondDec 27, 2017

I was hoping for something truly special with this movie, but it doesn't get there. When I think about it, it's not Chastain or Elba who aren't doing their jobs - they are both excellent. It's the story, which is over-complicated and notI was hoping for something truly special with this movie, but it doesn't get there. When I think about it, it's not Chastain or Elba who aren't doing their jobs - they are both excellent. It's the story, which is over-complicated and not helped by the hyper-speed dialogue which Sorkin is famous for. Think West Wing dialogue on speed. At least with West Wing, when a character speeds through a critical piece of dialogue, you can pause and jump back 15 seconds on your DVR. Not in the theater. Lastly, there's nothing incredibly important about this story. No massive life lessons to extract from it. And, without giving up any spoilers, there's a 5 - 7 minute conversation between Bloom and her father (Kevin Costner) toward the end of the film which seem interminable!… Expand

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

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6

amheretojudgeJan 31, 2018

hey, switch seats..

Molly's Game Too much of content and too much of parallel sub-plots playing on track is smart as it lets the audience work it out but it also may come off as a hoax which the makers have taken care off but it still seemshey, switch seats..

Molly's Game

Too much of content and too much of parallel sub-plots playing on track is smart as it lets the audience work it out but it also may come off as a hoax which the makers have taken care off but it still seems like too much complicated to invest your chips in (probably the same mistake as Martin did on Casino). Molly's Game seems like a throwback to Martin Scorcese's flicks like The Wolf Of The Wall Street and Casino and just as DiCaprio and De Niro walks us through the whole movie so does Chastain too and yes, just like those flicks it had a similar trajectory in which it won't surprise you; bummer and that too for more than 2 hours. Aaron Sorkin's first directorial is definitely plausible but his bluff can be foreseen miles away which makes it all redundant. Jessica is in her A game and with a good supporting cast like Elba, the ride is quite safe in their hands. But in the end, what Molly's Game lacks in offering is appropriate editing, perpetual drama and a better or justified climax.… Expand

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6

BerikOct 31, 2019

Meet Molly. An unlikable, self absorbed victim of an insecure father that forced her into being an anti-social elitist that was struck a bad hand while competing in the olympics. When she closes the door on her father, she starts orginazingMeet Molly. An unlikable, self absorbed victim of an insecure father that forced her into being an anti-social elitist that was struck a bad hand while competing in the olympics. When she closes the door on her father, she starts orginazing poker games. And then stuff goes wrong, she faces prosecution and suddenly a sense of pride and morality is injected into the movie that comes out of nowhere...

So, Molly was pushed from an early age to be 'a winner' by her psychotic father. Even though this gives her acute scoliosis, it doesn't stop him from pushing her even further. Apparently, her brothers became succesfull through this treatment, and she is the black sheep of the family. I'm getting sick to my stomach just from putting this into sentences.

Two hours into the movie it is suddenly revealed that her dad was ashamed of cheating on molly's mother, and that changed molly into something that hates the idea of a normal relationship. This pretty much drops out of nowhere as the first two hours are really just about Molly orginazing poker matches, and shows how rich this makes her. That, and Jessica Chastain had to do the entire movie with her breasts being pushed up to distract the audience from this weirdly written script.

It seems like the movie doesn't know what it wants to be. Does it want to show how cool it is to get succesfull and rich in orginazing poker, or does it want to be some drama about psychotic personalities? Calling it entertaining would go way too far for me. It's an average movie. I give it a 6/10.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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6

HotelCentralDec 16, 2018

Give this film a 7 if you're a serious fan of poker and want to hear a lot of narration about the who, what and why.

Molly's Game feels a little bit like Goodfellas. Molly's narration starts when she's a kid and continues through nearlyGive this film a 7 if you're a serious fan of poker and want to hear a lot of narration about the who, what and why.

Molly's Game feels a little bit like Goodfellas. Molly's narration starts when she's a kid and continues through nearly every scene in the film. The problem here is that Jessica Chastain delivers the narrative in what amounts to a monotone, and Molly is not a working class kid growing up in a neighborhood full of chummy mafiosi. Her father's a college professor. Her family is full of genius level IQs. And she's not only highly intelligent. She evolves into a world-class athlete headed for the Olympics (till fate intervenes) and she's gorgeous too. So by the time she's running her high stakes poker games she's proven herself extraordinary and it becomes hard to sympathize with someone who tries to tell people (including her lawyer) that she has nothing to do with the mob, and, by the way, she's tap-dancing real hard to avoid ever breaking any laws against gambling because she's such a principled person.

So principled that, in the end, she won't dish to the feds about her players because that would violate her personal code. I mean, you don't see this kind of "loyalty" in the real world mafia, and like the federal prosecutor in the film I don't believe a word of it.

But, hey, dear old Dad is sure proud. He describes the successes of Molly's two brothers in glowing terms, and then describes Molly as creating a million dollar business out of nothing but her own wit. That's some demonstration of principles.

You'd think someone as brilliant as Molly would at least have a peephole in the front door of her condo.… Expand

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6

THEDOOMEDHELLFeb 5, 2021

Molly's game is interesting as a movie because it does two things:
- it is conscious of its book adaptation throughout the movie
- it tells a convincing story of a supposed truthful one. The pros: - half decent acting (from celebrity actors)Molly's game is interesting as a movie because it does two things:
- it is conscious of its book adaptation throughout the movie
- it tells a convincing story of a supposed truthful one.
The pros:
- half decent acting (from celebrity actors)
- screenplay acceptible
- lots of interesting timeline shifting (flashbacks mostly)
- story is relatively good
The cons:
- most characters feel like stereotypes
- for some reason, half the characters will speak monotonely and with long paragraphs, affects the acting a lot.
- *incoming* fake psychiatric session scene
- story/marketing said it was a true story, details are exaggerated during movie duration to help the movie as a drama
- over-dramatisation, parts where events happen without explanation just to set a dramatic tone

Overall, it's a good movie. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who enjoys cinematography, or acton flicks, or even political flicks, but it's an acceptible drama. This is definitely a movie intended for girls. There's very little in terms of stakes, there's a lot of weird "I can do it and men can't" scenes and scenes of "I'm hot and attractive so I'm irresistable to men" type stuff. Good feminist movie, feels overall like a "girl in a man's world" movie. So if you like that kind of stuff, this is not a half-bad version of that.… Expand

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6

KaustavJan 28, 2018

Underwhelming.
I am fan of the work of Aaron Sorkin. Everything he writes has such a sharp edge to that is feels to fun to not just watch but hear patiently and intently. He is a good storyteller.
Despite my obvious bias in this case, I don'tUnderwhelming.
I am fan of the work of Aaron Sorkin. Everything he writes has such a sharp edge to that is feels to fun to not just watch but hear patiently and intently. He is a good storyteller.
Despite my obvious bias in this case, I don't know whether I should blame the writers who worked on it or the story itself, which while still unique, is just not interesting or causal enough to make a difference to me.
I still admire the acting of Jessica Chastain (and the opportunity to know awesome and attractive she can look when needed to). She was only reason I was willing to watch through to the end. Her portrayal of a character that is perhaps way more than interesting I thought it would be. Idris Elba and Kevin Costner couldn't do enough to make me care for them or their characters, it felt anybody else would have sufficed too. At least, it was indictment of a chance at the Justice system still having hopes on itself and good people not being absolutely being horribly messed up for some inadvertent mistakes they met. Who knows, for this movie won't really answer it for you.… Expand

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5

FabrizioMaffeiSep 11, 2018

A film that is based only on the excellent acting of Jessica Chanstain but nothing more.
The other actors are forced to act scenes heard several times in this kind of film.
Good the first part with a quickly editing while in the second theA film that is based only on the excellent acting of Jessica Chanstain but nothing more.
The other actors are forced to act scenes heard several times in this kind of film.
Good the first part with a quickly editing while in the second the film becomes boring with a trivial ending.
Sad, because the story of Molly Bloom was very interesting.… Expand

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6

Ryanm42Jan 22, 2019

Not Sorkin's best. I don't buy for a minute that Molly is as blameless as Sorkin makes her out to be (or as her book does if that's the case). Chastain is a wonderful actress, but her delivery of Sorkin dialogue is not as clear and smooth asNot Sorkin's best. I don't buy for a minute that Molly is as blameless as Sorkin makes her out to be (or as her book does if that's the case). Chastain is a wonderful actress, but her delivery of Sorkin dialogue is not as clear and smooth as the cast of West Wing of Jeff Daniels. Idris Elba does a fine job as does Costner. I don't think this is even Chastain's fault per se, it takes a certain type to do Sorkin well.… Expand

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