Win It All (2017)

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is very much like the script for The Fighter. Sure, that was about a has been, and this one is about a never has been. To mess things up the gambling is added on top.The acting is superb. The naturalism is excellent. It clearly diverts from the Hollywood rigid standard. And the small gestures do make a big difference in delivering the act. Yet the camera is annoying. Swanberg is trying to make the viewer part of the scene. The camera is just a human witness moving around. But he has to work hard on that. Because the result is pretty close to sea sickness.Like The Fighter, the main character is down on his luck. And his annoying brother is helping him at a price. The problem is the price is not too high so why is the main character refusing the help in the first place? By half time the story becomes shaky: is it about a gambler down on his luck or is it about a recovering gambler. In the end we get to know that is the latter, but that is simply because the script said so.And after that it is getting worse and out of scriptwriter's control. Although predictable, the criminal getting early is just there to hasten the closure. And the closure is magical simply because there is no other way to have a happy end. Which is corny the way it was set up.Yet the final is the worse. The script simply cuts to: and than the angel or whatever saw the guy had clean intentions and the angel gave him luck. Which is absurd, but the only way to get a happy end to a bleak story. But the guy wants more, after all he is a gambler. But god gives him a heart attack to take him out. The heart attack is so badly inserted into the script it might just well be inserted while filming. So for half a scene I though the guys went out without the money, simply because the black coat would look the same as the bag.And the rest? There is no rest. He does well. He starts eating his veggies and rests a lot more. And? What about the criminal inserted at the beginning that hastened the meandering and by the time pointless love story plot? How about a big house paid by a sole registered nurse wage? Will his lawnmower man money help? The time is up, the curtain is down and the story is left headless.The acting is good. The small details in camera, minus the shaking, are good. Yet in the end The Fighter is an excellent movie and Win It All is a fail.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

"Win It All" is a film about a guy who is floating through life, never accepting responsibility. He is also a gambling addict, which is partly to blame for his lack of maturity. He knows he needs to reform, but he cannot muster the willpower. Like most gamblers, he is always waiting for the big payoff to pull him out of his hole, and fate sends him an opportunity to regain fiscal fitness--if he can just control his impulses.This is a solid kernel of an idea for a film, and Jake Johnson feels committed to the part of the main character, Eddie, but the film never reaches its potential. Much of the story feels clichéd and the characters are underdeveloped. This is most noticeable with Eddie's romantic relationship--with Eva (Aislinn Derbez, who feels like she has more to contribute). The development of their feelings for each other is cheated by many brief scenes that sometimes feel like a montage. This may be due, in part, to editing, but the writing is the main culprit. In scenes that should carry some weight, there is inadequate exposition. It's like watching a Cliff's Notes version of a film.The ending is abrupt and underwhelming. It's unclear if this was intentional or if it was due to the inadequate build-up of dramatic tension.

This is kind of a movie that you would't remember any thing about it right after watched it whatsoever. Nothing impressive, no casting, no directing, no cinematography, absolute nothing, emptiness, void! I rarely watch Netflix sponsored movies or shows and after this terrible experience, I decided that even those rare incidences would definitely drop to zero. This is for Joe Swanberg, please stop making movies, you may have some other talents in some other line of businesses. Go explore the world, start from scratch, try something else, I'm sure you will be way much successful in anything else but directing a movie, I'm sure you will, anything, just try it! Thank you.

Overall, it is such a nice movie to watch, totally recommended and pretty good... But I felt like some emotions that were expressed by Eddie (Jake Johnson), the main character, were a little fake and not original or life-like.And the main idea or story that the movie made was not clear until the very end where he "Won It All". (can be a good or a bad thing)But overall a must watch.