(1986) "For some players, luck itself is an art." Fast Eddie Felton (Paul Newman) is back (a quarter of a century after The Hustler with Jackie Gleason) in director Martin Scorses's pool-hall entertainment, based on Walter Tevis's novel, with Tom Cruise as Vincent Laurie (looking like a young Ricky Nelson with '50s high hair) and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Carmen (Julia Roberts without the big lips).

No longer a player, Eddie's a successful liquor salesman and stake horse. While chatting up Janelle (Helen Shaver) about bourbon, he takes notice of Vincent beating his stake Julian (John Turturro) at 9-ball. After initially offering Carmen, Vince's girlfriend, $500 for a game with the kid (a flake with natural character, possessing an eye and stroke), he says: "It's too much, and I'm an unknown." First lesson of the pair's education.

"He's gotta learn to be himself on purpose," Eddie - speaking from his area of excellence as a student of human moves - says to her. Carmen (she met Vincent in a police station after she and a former boyfriend robbed his mother) learns fast; however, the kid while having balls is short on brains.

In addition to giving a gift of a Balabuska, Eddie offers Vincent, along with Carmen (to "make him feel good"), six weeks on the road in his Cadillac, all expenses paid, to hustle and "teach him how to run," in exchange for 60% of winnings, on the way to the national tournament in New Jersey. "It ain't about pool," says Eddie to his pupil: "It's ain't about sex. It ain't about love. It's about money."

Next lesson: show no mercy whenever money's on the table; "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned." But Eddie finds Vincent uncooperative in his showboating circus antics, resistant to his method of teaching; it's "child care."

Eventually they begin to score with Eddie's "two brothers and a stranger" act, until Eddie gets played for a chump by Amos (Forest Whitaker). Needing to recover his self-respect, Eddie turns the two kids loose with $3,000, admitting he has nothing more to teach Vincent, before getting a pair of glasses and ready for the 9-Ball Classic in Atlantic City where he goes up against his protégé.

"It's even," says Eddie afterward, "but it ain't settled. Let's settle it." Great songs - featuring performances by Willie Dixon, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Mark Knopfler, Warren Zevon, among others - in a score by Robbie Robertson.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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