Did you people see the same film I saw?

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Four friends in a weekly poker game. A burglar breaks in. They kill him. It looks bad (they tied his hands; he tried to escape and one of them baseball-batted him). They don't report it and dump the body.Then things get really bad.From a novel by Ed Gorman, Johnathon Schaech produces, co-screenplays and stars in the tight thriller, THE POKER CLUB. If you're looking for poker action, go watch ROUNDERS or 21. Despite its title, in this movie, you'll get exactly five minutes of poker as an establishing shot, then the movie concerns itself with how the burglar's death affects the four friends of The Poker Club (quaky Loren Dean, beanstem Michael Risley, dynamic Johnathon Schaech and Chippendaler Johnny Messner).Part psychological thriller, part gore-fest, all indie film-making.A couple of twists you can see coming and a couple you can't, some good acting and some bad acting, motivations which seem untidy and some which we can buy; all in all, the most fun you can have watching a poker movie without actually watching a poker movie.--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).

When an intruder is found in the house during the weekly poker game the buddies end up killing him. Deciding not to call the police they dump the body and swear secrecy. Unfortunately things turn deadly in the aftermath as someone starts looking for revenge and past misdeeds start to be aired. On top of that the body the thought was well hidden is discovered by the police… This is a good little thriller that moves along at a good clip. Its brief running time, its about 80 minutes assures that things keep moving. The brevity also works against the film in some ways since there are times when some of the characters get lost, I had to pause to think about who was whom since the names to faces didn't seem to really stick with me. Worth seeing as a rental or on cable. Between 6 and 7 out of 10

Johnathon Schaech does that thing he does best playing Aaron Tyler, who hosts of a weekly poker game of his old friends. The game is interrupted by the appearance of a burglar, whose death leads everyone into a devastating spiral of treachery and deceit. The film takes some rather surprising liberties with the Ed Gorman novel, but it works on its own level thanks to the sure-handed direction of Tim McCann and the cast. Aside from the always reliable Schaech, I particularly enjoyed Johnny Messner as a cynical former baseball player, now a strip club owner, and Judy Reyes. It was good seeing her outside of her Scrubs. (Not that we see her completely out of her Scrubs, if you know what I mean.) Well worth a look.

I've been a fan of Tim McCann for a long time, an underrated, cult director who always brings a gritty, realistic edge to his films. While this is a more conventional story than the brooding, psychological Runaway, or the insane, disturbing, genre-bending Nowhere Man, the snappy direction and some nice performances elevate this crime drama. A few of the plot developments require a little willing suspension of disbelief, but that's often the case in these 'Hitchcockian' thrillers. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised, and happy to see the charismatic Loren Dean and a good jittery performance by McCann stalwart Michael Risley.