Stuey

Last night was a movie night for Debbie and I, and because we're the last kids on the block who do not subscribe to Netflix, we drove to Reel. Debbie spotted High Roller in the New Releases section and immediately picked it up. It's a biopic about the life of three-time poker world champion Stu Ungar, written and directed by A. W. Vidmer. We agreed on it as our pick of the night, and rented it.

I'm not at all sorry we did, but I won't recommend the movie to everyone. (More below the fold, including spoilers.)

What I liked about the movie was the picture it painted of life among the gambling wiseguys of the 1970s, with its blend of affection, integrity, violence, and sordidness. Stuey Ungar's choice to live in it was shown as reasonable and appropriate, and its other inhabitants were depicted as human, likeable people. Ungar's early gambling career was as a wizard player of gin rummy. One scene, pitting Ungar against a high roller, depicts Ungar's legendary ability to know what his opponent held after four discards. The poker scenes later in the movie were reasonably well done, although as a poker buff I would have liked to see more of them. It was a valuable look at a world that has since changed almost unrecognizably.

The film is deeply flawed, however. It is not well-written. The dialogue stumbles in many places. The scene of Stuey's father's funeral shows an open casket, which simply wouldn't be the case at a Jewish funeral. A bedroom dispute between Ungar and his wife seemed completely unmotivated and unbelievable.

Moreover, there is a complete disconnect between the people around him and those who figured in the life of the historical Ungar. In the film, Ungar's wife is named Angela and his daughter is Nicole. The real-life Stu Ungar was married to a woman named Madeline, and their daughter was named Stephanie. Everyone except Ungar is fictional. Bob Stupak and Mike Sexton are completely absent from the story; in their place is a fictional "D.J." who bears a passing resemblance to Jack Strauss.

I don't think writer A. W. Vidmer does justice to the role of drugs in Ungar's life. He is shown using cocaine, spinning out, and then cleaning up. The script implies that Ungar died clean and sober, which the real Ungar certainly did not.

WSOP.dk has a list of links pointing to information about the real Stuey Ungar. There's a reminiscence by Mike Sexton on PokerPages, and Ken Churilla has a page of several people's memories and tributes to Ungar on the Gocee.com Poker Center.

High Roller was completed and taken onto the film festival circuit under the title Stuey in 2003. In January of this year it was picked up for cable by Starz, and it was released on DVD on March 15.