DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

phd_travel This is a really good black comedy. A gambling addict takes a trip to Vegas to rescue his niece from a life of hooking.Britney Snow is very good - she plays it straight and doesn't overact or make it silly. Broderick has found a role he is suited for. His deadpan is great. Facinelli is great as the sleaze bag boyfriend. The scene with him at the dinner is priceless. But it is the writing that is the best. The way the dialog and situations unfold is fresh and spontaneous.The ending is realistic and although it is a comedy it has a good believable ending. It's also a good look at addiction. There is a moral to the story.

Nate Matz Finding Amanda, the story of a man who lies more than I can stand and the happiest hooker you will ever meet.I'm going to put this right out here up front. This movie tried to make a point about addiction and enjoying two vices of society, gambling and prostitution. However, the point is so heavily veiled that it never comes across, there is no epiphany and the ending, while kinda happy, really just leaves you thinking that the time you invested in trying to like or relate to these people was wasted.Taylor Mendon (Broderick) is a producer for the worst show on TV who has an addictive personality (sounds funny, but it really isn't). He is attending counseling to get over his addictions and while he has quit smoking and drinking, he cannot give up gambling, rationalizing his last quirk as acceptable. After all, he gave up smoking and drinking, two out of three is pretty good! Anyway, after he finds out his niece Amanda is living in Vegas and is a hooker who has a drug problem (and after his wife corners him in a lie) he decides to make it up to his wife by "proving that he can quit gambling" by going to Vegas and getting Amanda to rehab. Sounds noble, right? Wrong! You find out that he is so addicted to gambling that he steals a check from his wife BEFORE HE LEAVES. The first thing he does in Vegas is gamble (again, sounds funny, but it comes across as pathetic). You realize that you are not going to like this guy.OK, so eventually he finds Amanda (Snow), who is really just as sweet and chipper as any other Brittany Snow character I've seen. She is thrilled to be a hooker since she can afford a nice house and a nice car. Oh, and if any of you guys out there are hoping to see her don a sexy outfit, she really doesn't. She does not put on either the outfit on the poster or the DVD cover (I admit that was some of the allure to renting it, sorry). She wears conservative clothing and does not look at all like a hooker.So, over time, we realize that both Taylor and Amanda are so comfortable with what they feel is acceptable behavior, we discover that these characters are borderline delusional, making every pathetic excuse to justify that they are happy.Eventually, cracks in there "perfect" lives form. We begin to not project ourselves on to a character and instead sympathize with the secondary, observer characters that are detached from the action. I found myself relating to Taylor's wife more than any other character, I even related to Steve Coogan a bit.So, the story begins to follow an organic path near the end and you begin to realize that everything will fall into place, when at the last minute, things just go wrong and the ending is bass-ackwards.Ultimately, this turned into a movie about observing people who don't realize that they are delusional and selfish. In fact, you will likely hate (and I don't mean love-to-hate) Taylor because he lies ALL THE TIME!!! Chances are anything that you can take away from this movie is realizing that you know at least one person like this.I did not like this movie, but didn't hate it either. This movie does not have me fuming, it just makes me want to forget that I saw it, and unfortunately for everyone involved, I likely will very soon.

bfm_1017 I must be an old fashioned fool. I watched this movie with my wife on DISH Network, and thought it would have a different ending. I thought Amanda and Taylor would walk together into rehab. I also thought Taylor would womp Amanda's idiot and abusive boyfriend with his broken hand. What was I thinking? A real hooker would never be the same, as described in the movie. Anyone who was raped would of course be a troubled person. I kept wondering why Taylor didn't immediately report this crime to the authorities back home. I also wondered how Taylor could take that in stride.So I should have seen the lousy ending coming. My wife did. Very disappointed, I guess, considering the subject matter. Guess I better stick with Turner Classic movies for the happy endings, or Disney. I couldn't wait to delete this movie from my DVR.

hprouty It is remarkable to me that anybody could even sit through this film -- I walked out after 45 minutes. The Matthew Broderick character, a TV sitcom writer who I guess we're supposed to feel some empathy for because he's given up drinking and smoking (or so he says) but just CAN'T give up playing the ponies, is basically just a jerk, who lies-lies-lies to his long-suffering wife about his gambling, in ways that are apparently supposed to be seen as clever or amusing but are in fact pathetic and unfunny. (Sample gag: he's calling his wife from the men's room at the track, lying about being at a meeting "at the network"; he's frantically trying to tip/bribe the men's-room attendant to "not sweep" while he's on the phone...and then some other guy FLUSHES a urinal. Wife: "Are you in a bathroom?" MB: "They have bathrooms at the network, you know." Hysterical, eh?) It only gets worse, when he heads off to Vegas ostensibly to "rescue" his niece (the titular Amanda) from a life of prostitution -- and instead heads straight for the casino, after having promised his wife that the trip was "NOT about gambling." He eventually "finds" Amanda (although it hardly seems like he's even interested in looking for her), who turns out to be the most happy-go-lucky 19-year-old hooker of all time. (I don't actually know if she's 19 or not, maybe they didn't even say -- she acts like she's about 13, though.) And get this: despite the fact that he finds her turning tricks by hanging around by the elevators in a third-rate casino (with a couple of other skanky-looking chicks), trying to pick up any guy who walks by, we're meant to believe that she's been such a roaring success as a prostitute that she's been able to buy a nice red sports car AND a house AND support a sleazy boyfriend (who apparently isn't even her pimp). But she's a good person, you see, because the next thing we see her doing is going to a REALLY BAD NEIGHBORHOOD (where she leaves her nice car unattended with the top down, at night) to buy heroin (or something) as a favor to one of her girlfriends -- not that she would ever use such nasty stuff herself, but she buys her friend "a little less each time" because she's helping her quit. Or something like that. By this time I'd had enough, and bolted for the door. Trust me, these comments don't even begin to encompass the lame and obvious jokes, the unbelievable plot situations, the awful performances (Broderick's included), and so on. I've never been compelled to post a comment -- positive or negative -- on IMDb before, but if I can save even one person from wasting their time and money on this piece of junk, it'll have been worth the effort.