Product Details

• Actors: Olivia Williams, Balthazar Getty, Arly Jover, Jason Cairns, Ruben Moreno
• Directors: Paul Rachman
• Writers: Shawn David Thompson, William Quist
• Producers: Betsy Mackey, Dennis Stuart Murphy, Jason Shuman, Josie Wechsler, Matt Salinger
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English, Spanish
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: May 7, 2002
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005QWAK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #390,104 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awsome Flick!, January 18, 2004

By 

wolfy_the_black (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Four Dogs Playing Poker (DVD)

I just happoned to stumble upon this movie one day after class, and was immeadiatly captured by it. The storyline was intriguing, the actors were suburb, and the ending surprised me. Now whenever I catch it on TV again, I have to watch it! Definatly a must see on a rainy night!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tim steals the show, July 15, 2003

By 

Sarah Smith (Leslie, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Four Dogs Playing Poker (DVD)

Great movie...in my personal opinion it was completely under-rated. I hadn't even heard of it until a couple of months ago.
Tim steals the show...despite the fact that he dies considerably early. Why is it that he dies in every damn movie? There's something about his English accent that exudes sensuality, and for an older man he is extremely attractive...but to each his own, I'm sure there are those that would disagree with me. Go rent or buy this movie today...you won't regret it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Weak Screenplay But An Interesting Basic Premise, February 14, 2006

By 

Only-A-Child - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Four Dogs Playing Poker (DVD)

You gotta like the "4 Dogs Playing Poker" title but you won't find any of those "dogs sitting around a poker table" pictures in this film. Instead the four dogs are four twenty-something characters recruited by Tim Curry to steal a priceless statuette for a crooked art dealer (Forest Whitaker). Things go wrong and they spend the majority of the movie trying to extricate themselves from their predicament.

They finally settle on a plan to take out back dated life insurance policies and randomly kill one of themselves, using the insurance money to square their account with Whitaker. If all this sounds a bit contrived to you, it might be wise to avoid this film as it requires considerable suspension of logic during the viewing, and even more later when you reflect back on the unexpected twists taken by the story.

The worst part of the whole experience is that aside from the massive plot holes the film is pretty entertaining; making it a frustrating experience since just a little bit of inventiveness by the writer could have successfully closed those holes.

The film wastes little time getting going as the carefully planned theft is already in progress as the titles roll. The team displays just the right mix of amateurism and luck to build some nice suspense and their consignment of the statuette to the purser of a freighter provides some nice ambiguity and foreshadowing.

Things slow down for the remainder of the film and the logic of subsequent events is a bit dodgy. You are unlikely to guess the ending because the director provides insufficient clues. Had there been sufficient information revealed in a form disguised by clever misdirection, "4 Dogs Playing Poker" would have been a real treat.

The most effective tool that the writer/director of suspense films has is the power to show only what they want the viewer to see. This combines with the ability to draw the eye to certain things in the frame and to distract the viewer from more important clues. Manipulating the viewer up to a point but then allowing them free rein to invest each development with their own interpretation (insert "Sixth Sense" and "Kansas City" here). Unfortunately "4 Dogs Playing Poker" simply withholds any important clues. Viewer hindsight does not reveal any reason to feel guilty about not guessing the outcome nor to feel thrilled at being cleverly fooled.

"4 Dogs" has good physical casting with decent performances from the entire ensemble, Curry is excellent and Olivia Williams shows considerable range as there is mega distance between her character here and her extraordinary performance in "Rushmore". Balthazar Getty's close resemblance to Charlie Sheen is distracting but not really a problem.

But to be very good, a small movie like "4 Dogs" must give the viewer complex and realistic characters, particularly when the last half of the movie is more character study than action adventure or psychological thriller. Unfortunately that does not happen and all we end up with are one-dimensional stereotypes that we have no reason to care about. Apparently in their desire to reveal no clues about the resolution, the writer and director excluded anything that might have passed for characterization.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.