Well Deserved Praise

An action-packed slog

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The Color of Money is a classy film, with a great cast. It's not perfect, but it does deserve this rating.The opening sequence is truly one of the best in cinema. Each character is at their very best here and Phil Collins's "One More Night" is playing. On the snap Vincent! Paul Newman is exceptional throughout and mostly carries the film beyond the opening sequence, but a lot of that is due to the restrictions on the other characters. The plot is quite weak, as it is a film about hustling and they never accomplish or even get into any hustling because Vincent always starts winning, except the one with the bar keep and that is just silly. The style, subject matter and acting talent is what makes it a quality film.Eddie Felson: Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.

With seven Academy Award nominations, it appeared that Paul Newman, at age 60, might end his career in the ranks of top Hollywood entertainers never to have won an Oscar. In his case, it included leading actor roles in six films and as director of one. Five of the acting roles and his only director nomination were up against stiff competition. But, he won the best actor Oscar for this 1986 film. Never mind that it was a year with not much competition for best actor. But for Ben Kingsley's "Gandhi" in 1982, Newman would have won an Oscar that year for his role in "The Verdict."Newman is very good as Fast Eddie Felson. "The Color of Money" is very good but nowhere near great, as are some other films of 1986 – "Platoon," "The Mission," "A Room with a View." But only one actor from those top films was nominated for best actor (William Hurt, for "Children of a Lesser God"). Except for Hurt's film, the others with best actor nominations were all lesser known films of the year. The performances by the best actor nominees probably was very good, but without any other big names from big films, this might just have been a year when the Academy made a sentimental choice. The film also stars a very young Tom Cruise who, in just the past couple of years had scored a couple of blockbuster films. So, he clearly was on his way to stardom and top billing, very soon. The rest of the cast are fine in this film. It's a movie about pool shooting. It has some nice moments of drama, but otherwise drags a little in places. Naturally, there's a considerable amount of time showing pool games. Those who like to play pool or billiards should enjoy this film. Most of those who don't care for pool probably will find the movie slow or boring.It's nice that Paul Newman won his Oscar for this film. He was a top entertainer for a few decades – though not one of the great actors, or best entertainers. He was one of the best humanitarians, and many fans appreciated him as much for his genuine charity and goodwill. See this film if you like to shoot pool, or like Paul Newman or Tom Cruise. Otherwise, don't go out of your way to watch or buy it.

I agree with many things written here about direction, acting, pool shooting etc. What I don't get here is the plot. The movie seems two consist of two parts which don't really connect, though you'd expect them to. Fast Eddie took young Vince with him in order to teach him the tactics of losing and winning, with the final goal of betting on him against low odds and making big bucks for everyone. After a series of hustling scenes, some involving Vince's girlfriend Carmen, Eddie falls for one himself. He becomes over-emotional about it in a way that totally doesn't fit his character so far. Then, against any sense, his frustration leads him to give up on Vince. He yells at Carmen and him to continue to Atlantic City on their own, as he can't teach Vince anything anymore. At this point of the movie I was SURE that this dramatic move was a part of some big plan that Eddie had, and actually wondered how come Carmen and Vince bought it so easily. But as it turned out... there was no big plan. When they met in Atlantic City I was excepting something really interesting to happen and… nothing did. As the movie ended when Eddie and Vince matching, Eddie saying "I'm back!", I thought that perhaps the whole journey was a scam hiding the fact that Eddie was still in good shape. I came here assuming that the FAQ would answer my questions. But… nothing? This is just it? Eddie financed the journey just to use Vince's talent for a short while and small money? And then Eddie decided to return playing? Is that all? Disappointed.

"The Color of Money" is a delayed sequel to "The Hustler" from 1961 which provided Paul Newman with one of his best-known early roles as the pool hustler Fast Eddie Felson. Fast Eddie then disappeared from the screen for a quarter of a century, but in 1984 Walter Tevis, the author of the novel on which the earlier film had been based, published a sequel, and Newman was persuaded to return when this was itself adapted for the cinema. Jackie Gleason's character Minnesota Fats is, however, absent, as it was felt that he would not fit in well with the story. As the film opens, the now middle-aged Fast Eddie has retired from playing pool and is working as a liquor salesman, until one night he meets Vincent Lauria, a young up-and-coming pool player who reminds him of his younger self. Eddie persuades Vincent and his girlfriend Carmen to go on the road with him. The deal is that Eddie will teach Vincent all the tricks of the game and in return Vincent will give him a cut of his winnings. By "tricks of the game" Eddie does not just mean formal pool-playing skills- Vincent is already a formidably good player- but also the scams and dodges (some of them very ethically dubious) which Vincent will need to be a successful hustler. Eddie's nickname does not just refer to the speed with which he can clear a pool table; he is also "fast" in the sense of slippery or dishonest. His creed is that "pool excellence is not about excellent pool"- it's more about successful gambling. His protégé's success encourages Eddie to make a return to the game himself, and he and Vincent find themselves playing in the same tournament. Together with Henry Fonda's win for "On Golden Pond" from five years earlier, Newman's "Best Actor" Academy Award for this film is often cited as the prime example of an Oscar given for sentimental reasons rather than on merit. (Ironically Newman, nominated for "Absence of Malice", was one of the actors who lost out to Fonda in 1981). Neither actor had previously won an Oscar, and these films were seen as their "last chance" to win one. In Fonda's case this was quite literally true- "On Golden Pond" was his very last film and he died not long after receiving his award- but Newman made a number of films after 1986, his last, "Road to Perdition", coming as late as 2002. Newman's performance here is certainly good, but I would not rank it alongside the truly great ones he had earlier given in films like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Hombre", "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Sting", or the one he was later to give in "Road to Perdition", all of which were overlooked by the Academy. The award of a sentimental Oscar would not have mattered much had 1986 been a weak year in the cinema, but in fact it was a very strong one, the year of films as good as "Children of a Lesser God", "The Mission" and "Hannah and Her Sisters", all of which contained at least one performance at least as good as Newman's. The brash, cocky, up-and-coming young Vincent is played by an up-and- coming young actor named Tom Cruise, and in the eighties nobody could do brash and cocky like Cruise. This is not really one of his best performances- he was not to emerge as a great actor until "Rain Man" and "Born on the Fourth of July" a few years later- but at least he is not as annoying here as he was in other films from the period like "Risky Business" or "Cocktail". The film was described by some critics as an inferior follow-up to "The Hustler", but as it's a long time since I saw that film I won't attempt a direct comparison. It is reasonably well made and acted, but I can't say it's a great favourite of mine, even though I'm normally a big admirer of Martin Scorsese. Part of the reason is that (like most Britons) I know very little about pool. ("A sort of American version of snooker?") This is not, however, the main reason; after all, I don't know much about baseball either, and that has never prevented me from loving films like "Eight Men Out" or "Field of Dreams". I think that the real reason is that it's all a bit passionless, with no tension and no characters with whom the audience can identify. There is never any real dramatic conflict between Eddie and Vincent because they are no more than older and younger versions of the same not very attractive character, and we never really care about who wins their big match. It's not a bad film, but it's not one of Scorsese's masterpieces in the class of "Taxi Driver", "King of Comedy" or "The Aviator". 7/10