Walken plays: Mike - Kindly millionaire, gambling guru, corporate nonconformist
Synopsis: You wouldn't be wrong for mistaking Poolhall Junkies as a cocky vanity project for writer/director/star Gregory 'Mars' Callahan (who looks like Jason Lee and Casey Affleck had a cheerily obnoxious man-baby). Still, it's a slick, snappily shot (pun!) sports romp, and propelled by a spectacular funky score, and, with the help of some choice casting, more fun than it has any right to be. The story is a tale as old as time - crack shot Johnny (Callahan) is tired of hustling for mobstery backer Joe (Chazz Palminteri), so he tries to get out of the game to make it on his own (though he evidently still gets his kicks hustling fat cats at parties). But alas, he's lured back in for one last game once Joe hustles Johnny's brother (Michael Rosenbaum, better known as Smallville's Lex Luthor, who, with hair, looks eerily like Paul Rudd - or maybe I just couldn't stop fan-casting who I'd rather be watching) into debt and prison. At times, the writing is as high school as you'd expect (especially for Alison Eastwood - yes, Clint's daughter - who's here to play 'Male Love Interest Validation Device 101'), but Callahan keeps it energetic, and whenever the pool balls are racked and James Brown blares, it's top notch entertainment.
Walken and Eastwood must have had fun commiserating, as he also exists as a plot device: namely, 'Daddy Warbucks deus-ex-machina,' who cavalierly funds Johnny's ego as the plot calls for it. Still, he's jubilantly present here - or possibly just relieved he's not stuck in the Palminteri role for once - and sticks around for more scenes than you'd expect, typically livening up every single one. It may not be too much of a dramatic stretch for him, but the sheer air of fun he exudes whenever he or anyone nearby picks up a pool cue makes it pretty hard not to drink the koolaid and smell that sweat of the pool hall alongside him. And hey - what'dya know: turns out Walken's a damn good pool player himself, snapping back the balls, including one impossibly hard shot clearly done by him, without a stunt shooter (which imdb trivia reports he nailed on the first take, when the cameras weren't even supposed to be rolling). Just in case you doubted he was the coolest cat around.
Wacky Walken dialogue: His walk-in zinger is pretty tops: "What do you call a thousand lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand." Still, it's all about dem monologues here, and Callahan is wise enough to give Walken two back-to-back: "I'm a millionaire," where he calls the bluff on all bookie schmucks who can't put their money where their mouths are, and an ornately pump-up speech about lions playing the long game before going in for the kill. Great stuff.
DOES HE DANCE: No, but that bank shot is goddamn cool it easily makes up for it.
Overall Walken-o-meter: 7/10 cowbells. Here we have Walken at his most sparkling and relaxed, rather than his usual modes of zany, threatening, or tragic. Do we like this Walken? Oh yes. Yes we do indeed.
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