Customer Reviews

Tilt - Season One

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

So I picked up this DVD set at Walmart because I love Eddie Cibrian, enjoy solid drama and thought series looked interesting from the packaging. Not having seen Rounders- the constant referral to it by the producers in the behind the scenes shots meant little. I watched this through in 3 sittings and was thoroughly entertained. Madsen as The Matador is chilling- his gravelly voice is full of such menace you wonder why everyone around him isn't in constant fear.....the three young poker players do an admirable job of pulling themselves together and through difficulties to bring down their nemesis. Lots of subplots all culminate in some tricky crime drama worthy of Tony Soprano.
Series is written by veteran mystery/crime writer Lawrence Block. His direct verbal style translates well to the Vegas poker scene. What I really liked here was the showing of the gambling world as a not too pretty place- lots of glitz on the surface but murky depths that few care to dwell in. Don McManus as Lowball is such slime- a bottom dweller unable to give up power and the game as head of the Colorado casino where the action in Tilt takes place.

Stylish, fun- full of pretty boys and girls but not too much t&a- this is a guilty pleasure I look forward to seeing more of!

Unlike the world of tilt, you can lose...BY NOT BUYING TILT ASAP. Argueably the finest show of our generation, the first season of tilt features groundbreaking performances from Michael Madsen and Chris Bauer. Bauer's performance as Lee Nickel is especially powerful as he brings Nickel not only to life, but after watching the show you will feel his presence as a wraith haunting your dreams...Its that powerful. Madsen continues his domination of American film by starring in this epic series, as the Don Corleone of the Tilt world to Bauer's Michael Corleone.

With that flood of hyperbole aside, there may be no finer way to celebrate this fathers day, and any other day for that matter by watching, nay, experiencing, tilt in its deterreform glory.

I can't figure out why this show got cancelled after it's 9 episode first season. My best guess is that ESPN is not where people will turn to for dramatic television, no matter how fantastic it is. Tilt may have done better on another channel. Regardless, this is a great show, and a great DVD set to own. The story is fast paced. By that I mean as much happens in these nine episodes as you would find in another show's regular twenty plus episode season. The cast is nice all around, but it is undeniably Michael Madsen's performance as the show's "villian" that steals the show. If you like well written drama, or if you've been in any way caught up in the poker craze that's caught on these past few years, you won't want to miss this DVD set.

Simply put, one of television's crowning achievements of this or any era. Madsen's acting is remnant of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. The character of Nickel is indisputably one of the most multileveled and perplexing in the history of drama, displaying Chris Bauer's massive and unfaltering acting prowess.
Tilt's dialogue is so natural that one often forgets that he is watching a piece of dramatic fiction, and not a documentary. The writing is top notch. Such a blend of drama, action, comedy, and nickel has never before been seen on the screen, and it brought a tear to the collective eye of millions of viewers every week.

My only regret is that Tilt was released as a weekly series, instead of as an epic film trilogy as originally intended. If not for the hollywood fatcats' politcal agendas, Tilt could have swept the Academy Awards like an unforgiving flood, and been seen as the greatest film trilogy of all time.

Excellent series. Madsen plays the old style gambler well. A few of the poker hands are a little far fetched but all and all an excellent series.

Last night was the season finale of ESPN's latest stab at original programming, Tilt. And if you didn't catch the promos where they contently mentioned it, Tilt is from the makers of Rounders. And if you didn't see the promos, you can tell just by watching the show with Eddie Cibrian doing his best Matt Damon impression. It almost seems that Eddie Towne could Mike McDermott before he gave up gambling. And they both were playing for revenge against the bad guy. I seemed to miss why Eddie, or Clark for that matter, held a grudge against the Matador, but that was one of many plot points I didn't pick up. But the big difference between the movie and show were the bad guys. Rounders had the cerebral villain in Teddy KGB where Tilt instead went for the mussel with Don 'The Matador' Everest. Both were perfectly cast. John Malkovich fit the intelligent poker player to a tee where Michael Madsen took being bad to an all new level pulling out all the stops to win short of cutting off some one's ear. In the token hot chick category, Rounders wins in a landslide. It was almost like they took the token hot chick from Rounders, gave her a couple whacks with the ugly stick, and then played her on Tilt. It was such a discrepancy, by the middle of the season they had to bring in a second token hot chick.

As a TV show, Tilt ran into some problems. As mentioned before, the show was had to follow at times and seemed to leave out some important information. They started off the show with an obvious swerve when the black guy attacks the white guy at the poker table. Looking back, the writer may have planned it to be obvious, as the Matador made reference to it after he turned on Eddie. Other burning question that were not answered or I just missed were what did the Iowa cop's brother do to get killed? Or why didn't Lowball threaten blackmail when he fired? Why did the Matador kill Skip himself while the tournament was going on? There were many holes that need to be filled. I even had to check out the website to see who killed themselves in the last episode.

Tilt did have many plot twists that I didn't see coming like killing Seymour off early. The big three being caught when the first tried to bring down the Matador. Clark's friend's secretary being FBI. And they save the best for last when it was revealed that the Matador threw the tournament. The final couple episodes was when the show as a whole pick up in the entertainment department with Norman Chad making he benign comments and the personal profile of the internet player who promptly got bounced in first round. Also, the last couple episode brought us an appearance of the Smoking Man playing a priest of all things.

I loved this show. In fact it's the first show I've been excited about watching since John Doe. I don't watch a whole lot of TV and as much as ESPN previewed it during sportscenter I was set not to like it. However, after 2 episodes I watched due to nothing else being on I was hooked!

Gotta love how the series ended. So if they don't make a second season then I am happy with how the show finished. After all in Vegas even when you lose you can still win.

Ever since the poker explosion of early 2005, I have been concerned with learning how to build and sustain an adequate bankroll. I conserve my bankroll for cash games. It seems every ostensible professional poker player is coming out with DVDs. Today I am delighted to say that you can throw those all away, along with your dusty copy of Super System, because the TILT DVD is the only instructional DVD you will need to become a triumphant high-stakes shark!

The Matador puts on a proverbial clinic for cash games. To a novice, his methods may seem avant-garde, but I assure you they are the only way to become a winning player. One example of this is when The Matador shows his students a move to do when you know you are going to make a straight pre-flop. He bets out 20 times the big blind from early position. In a cash game, no one would ever normally think of making such a sage move. That is why it catches your opponents off guard. This was clearly a trick of the trade I needed to add to my cash game arsenal as soon as possible. It reminded me of another move a slightly intoxicated man showed me once in a 3-6 game. I later came to find out this move was called "folding out of turn", as people kept asking me "why did you just fold out of turn" every time I tried to execute the move. The effectiveness of this secret strategy is really only understood by a few people. (Maybe I will explain it more when I come out with MY OWN DVD - tee hee hee.)

Anyway, in this hand, The Matador had to rely on his sixth sense as he was challenged with a min-raise from a formidable opponent, Lee Nickel. Nevertheless, in the end, The Matador relied on the fact that he already knew he was going to make a straight to bust Nickel's flopped set, and after much fan-fare, made the correct play.

I do not want to give away too many secrets because then there would be no reason to buy this DVD so you can learn how to play poker, but this DVD touches on many facets of cash game strategy. I am now on my third mortgage since implementing the strategies contained in this DVD, but I know that once I master this knowledge, my bankroll will flourish.

Great well produced Poker series. Some critics have said the plot is too focused on the seedy side of poker but come on, its a tv drama!
It has many cameos by top Poker pros.
This show aired in early 2005, had it been a year or 2 later, it wouda been a smash hit as the Poker Boom was by then in full stride.
Great 9 episode mini-series, but it and enjoy it before it gets deleted.

I saw this one when it originally aired on ESPN, and thought it was great then. Been watching for a copy ever since, and when I finally got it in the mail, I put on a pot of coffee and watched the entire series nonstop. 'Rounders' without the gratuitous swearing, and the final table footage from the '98 series is a bonus. It was available at some local video stores, but way overpriced (60.00+).