Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Blistering performances.

The premise of this game show is pretty simple, answer as many questions as you can up to the grand prize at 500 questions. There are some variations but answering a question correctly on your first attempt is worth $1000. The player banks the money and it's collected after each block of 50 questions. A second player is marginally involved and if the main contestant answers three consecutive incorrectly he is eliminated and the secondary player takes over. The question count and pot is reset to $O. The host is dry and a little goofy and the process drags out with his inane prattling. This is a limited run (at least for now) series scheduled for a total of 9 hours. It is currently running at a pace of 41 questions per hour episode. In the last two episodes they would have to answer 106 questions in each one to reach 500 questions total. With the current contestant having answered 62 questions there is no practical way for him to reach 500 (that's 219 per episode). If there were only one contestant all the way through he would have to average 56 questions hourly. Thus my summery title: An Exercise in Futility

The game itself is actually quite addictive. What makes the game far better than "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" is the open ended nature of the questions rather instead of being multiple choice. I like the twists along the way such as the Battle round and the Top Ten(?) question where you have to get 5 out of 10 possible choices. The satisfaction of the game play is at the level of Jeopardy, the gold standard.The problem with this game is everything else.The show wants to use as its themes the idea of a gladiatorial battle between 2 players, creating a false friction that never develops. The challenger largely sits around and only occasionally gets involved, which is not that interesting to watch. It also rips off Millionaire's atmosphere of a dark, cold set with what the producers think of as tension-inducing music. All this is nonsense, and boring. It just makes me want to yell at my flat screen.The host, Richard Quest, is the worst game show host ever. Hi is entirely dislike-able, with an unctuous tone, dismissive manner, arrogance, and non- relatability. He likes to emphasize the genius nature of the contestants, which is also off-putting (these game shows like to cast smart people already). And he keeps hoping to create a new catchphrase by having contestants say they will be "Gone" if they miss a critical question. I get that the coldness and the snobby British accent are part of the tone the producers want to induce, but it is all nonsense that has to go.I would watch this show if it somehow ended up in syndication. I would get away from anything resembling "Millionaire" using warm, brightly-lit sets and I would hire a personable host (Aisha Tyler, I'm talking to you!). It would still need to be an hour long (takes a long time to get to 500 questions if anyone ever does it). The one change I would make in game play would be to have contestants get their winnings and a new challenger after 25 questions. (As it stands now, we meet a new challenger about every hour.)

Just a different version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire!!! What is the deal with ABC??? Is ABC owned by the UK now? Why does this show have a English moderator??? Couldn't they find an American who could be the host??? ABC had now SO many shows with British lead characters - haven't they realized the English HATE Americans? Notice that I said English and not British for the UK is so much more than just England. Luckily the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh don't have any issues with the Americans. Trust me, I lived in North Yorkshire for 8 years and you have no idea how much English people hate Americans. You will not see it in shows such as the Abbey, but if you watch the local TV or attend any local shows, you would see how Americans are constantly under attack.

Who is the dimwit that came up with this show? This has got to be the most boring game show in history. While the questions are OK, the general concept is just confusing and more importantly horribly boring. Granted I missed the first 25 questions, so perhaps I missed the 2 hour explanation on the inner mechanics of the show. I suppose, that this is what the real life version of the game show "Bamboozled" on the Friends episode would look like. I would be very surprised if it makes it to the halfway mark before it gets pulled. Nothing against Richard Quest, but why on earth would he pick something so ridiculous to host.