The Million Dollar Bet

Bluesky

It might not seem to be the freshest of the bunch, one way or another. The Million Dollar Bet premiered at last year’s Viennale without succeeding to secure an extended festival tour, while its premise of slacker friends placing a bet with the money they do not have and cannot get seems like something lifted from an American 90s indie flick. However, in the light of film festivals favouring films that push some kind of agenda, something as lighthearted and fun as Thomas Woschitz’s first film in nine years, automatically feels refreshing.

The outskirts of Las Vegas, present day. Three slacker buddies feel stuck in their lives, so they are obsessed with poker, gambling and betting. Jack (Justin Cornwell, mostly active in the lower ranks of television) sees himself on the brink of succeeding as a poker player. Hank (Douglas Smith, seen in Die Alone) refuses to grow up and Tony (Sean Rogers) tries to smooth things between them.

Once Hank sees a man training for marathon, he offers Jack a bet the latter cannot refuse. Hank, who never trained in his life, thinks he could run a triple marathon – some 70 miles – in circles around the block within the frame of 24 hours. If he does not succeed, he will give Jack or whomever three dollars to one. Of course, Jack wants to earn some easy money, but he would also like to protect his friend against a world that can be more merciless than he is. In the meanwhile, Tony develops feelings for Hank’s sister Janet (Kristen Gutoskie), he and Jack have to justify themselves to Hank’s parents George (Todd Carroll) and Julia (a scene-stealing Carrie Gibson) and the sandstorm approaches the city and raises alarms.

The question is why would Hank propose a challenge he could not possibly win? Maybe Janet is simply right when she defines it as his race against growing up or growing old. But the thing is – all the guys, herself included, suffer from the very same thing.

Usually movie watchers fall for some lavish directing, acting with bravado or polished craft and technical skills, but the script stands at the foundation of everything. In this case, the screenplay written by the filmmaker and Andrea Piva is a proper masterwork, from the basic plotting to the intelligent, insightful dialogue. Eventually, it becomes a layered work that surpasses the genre conventions of thriller and dramedy, revealing a thing or two about the human psyche stuck in the eternal coming-of-age process.

There is nothing bad to be said about the other filmmaking components either. Woschitz is clever enough to serve the script without unnecessary attempts at extravaganza, while the choice of actors usually coming from the lower echelons of the American indie cinema fit the landscape playing their “everyman” characters compellingly and with conviction. The decision to confine the action to a nondescript neighbourhood, avoiding landmarks is also quite fitting, as is the retro approach to the soundtrack, which is dominated by droning electric guitar. In the end, The Million Dollar Bet is a movie that could be listened to as a radio play as well, which is an extremely rare case these days.