Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by rico (A) on March 21, 2005 at 13:18:19

Drifter Mandy Patinkin has been traveling around the country in his year old Beamer spending much of his inheritance from his late father. By chance he meets a fellow on the roadside (James Spader) and offers him a ride. Spader is a professional poker player and Patinkin offers to stake him $10,000 to play a rematch with two eccentric multi-millionaires at their estate. The rich men are played by Charles Durning and Joel Gray and they are a strange pair who hit it big in the lottery and then multiplied their winnings muti-fold. On a tour of their house Patinkin and Spader are shown a special room run by Grey where he has constructed a model of their world, copmplete with figues of the two wealthy denizens. The game begins and Spader is winning consistently. But when Patinkin excuses himself ostensibly to use the facilities he pockets one of the model figures and returns to find Spader now losing heavily, eventually going broke. As credit, Patinkin offers his car. Then that is lost. Unable to pay back what they owe, Patinlin and Spader (now estranged) accept an assignment to build a wall on the estate out of rocks the rich pair have had shipped in from Irelands. Local Emmet Walsh is assigned to oversee the project and the work begins as the losing pair live in a trailer and work 10 hour days seven days a week. Escape is impossible and apparently the local police are in the pockets of Durning and Grey. And things get worse.

This is one of those that hold the viewer but when it is over one is scratching one's head as to the meaning.