CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

liquidcelluloid-1 Network: ESPN; Genre: Drama, Crime; Content Rating: TV-14 (language, strong sexual content, brutal violence); Available: DVD; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4); Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season) Following in the footsteps of their first drama series, the controversial "Playmakers", ESPN's "Tilt" takes an unflattering look at the world of high stakes Las Vegas poker. "Playmakers" was an admirable failure, riddle with as many accomplishments as clichés. "Tilt" takes advantage of the national surge in interest for Texas Hold'Em, then turns around and bites the hand that fed it that opportunity. How dare the public not have recognized a game that has been around since the old west until now. There was some cynical fun in "Playmakers" take on football, but "Tilt" is an angry, bitter, relentlessly soul-sucking experience that is so single-minded in its attempt to demonize Vegas that the city could consider a defamation suit.When family man and cop Lee (Chris Bauer, "The Wire") sits down at the high stakes table he gets cleaned out by Don "The Matador" Everest. It turns out that Don is not only a legend in the poker world, but a strong arm of the casino sent to make sure that the house wins at all costs. If Lee wasn't enough of a pit bull bent on bringing down Everest, three pro poker players (Eddie Cibrian, Kristin Lehman, and Todd Williams), who were also at one time ruined by The Matador, team up to bring him down during the national poker championships.The poker action is as exciting as poker action gets. But creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien don't trust that poker will hold the narrative (a more talented team could have made it work), so they fill the stories with mobster, FBI agents, scam artists and a little murder mystery. Their Vegas is a full-on sadistic nightmare of a city, more "The Sopranos" than "Las Vegas", that sucks people in and eats them alive like a big neon monster. If the casino owners aren't crooked enough, the cops and judges are. Every few minutes somebody is being brutally beaten, casually murdered or tortured all set to trashing rock music. Nothing wrong with being loud, except when it is used as a transparent attempt to cover up a thread-bare nonsensical story.None of the characters are the slightest bit likable. Everybody growls and snarls either out of revenge or detachment or sheer black-and-white evil for the sake of evil. B-movie staple Michael "pardon me while I never clear my throat" Madsen is the worst as Everest. This unconvincing tough guy has 2 purposes: threatening in a gruff voice and beating while yelling in a gruff voice.The show is filled with monologues relating poker to life while saying nothing at all. On paper, on HBO or FX, this might not be a recipe for disaster, but Koppelman and Levien have a Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay sense of subtlety and ESPN doesn't have the experience or sense of quality control to rein them in. Under their eye a simple poker revenge drama becomes a loud, tacky, empty-headed, testosterone-fueled piece of punishment. "Tilt" is cheesy, B-movie stuff – and not the fun kind either.* / 4

slandrumlhs This show is awful. While its depiction of the technicalities of the play of poker is accurate, the actual situations that develop and the representation of poker in general is awful. There are no characters to root for in the show, all of the people are really bad people. Some have reasons for why they are less than acceptable specimens of the human race, but they should all be disposed of. The writing is rife with clichés and stereotypes, and all of the worst kind. It's actually painful to watch.I was initially interested in the show because I do play poker and am familiar with the poker world and the professional players. I also know some of the people involved in the show, so I really wanted to like it.I'm sorry to say this show does a complete disservice to poker, to television and to the audience. There are some less than reputable characters in the poker world, but this show makes it seem like the game is filled with nothing but con men, hustlers, cheats and worse. It's interesting that they chose this take on poker, as right now poker is more popular than it has ever been in history, and poker shows are among the most popular on ESPN, as well as other channels.

trauder What can you say about this show? Nothing good, except that the levels of terrible this show achieves are so complete it is impossible to look away. Its a train wreck of bad lighting, stilted dialog and ridiculous plot. The narration from our main character comes off as completely lame. When we are not being treated to the inner monologue of, some other character is spouting off "quality" lines such as "You play cards; you're not a card-player." The non-stop barrage of poker jargon, perhaps with some demented eye towards establishing "street cred" with the poker world is so bad it borders on self-parody.This show is mind-bogglingly bad. But, it is one of those monumental failures that you just can't stop watching. You will sit there, in a dazed stupor, wondering if there were any way the show could possibly be worse, but everything you come up with will invariably make the show better.The producers of "Tilt" have helpfully placed a warning at the beginning of each airing, presumably to prevent young people from taking up poker. I can think of no better way to ensure that a child will never want to play poker than by having them watch this show.

joshmajka-1 First of all, I don't know when Poker became a sport. I guess when all my uncle's got together on weekends to play cards they were showing off their athletic skills huh? Anyway, I digress...I have seen all of the ESPN movies and each one has been horrible, and Tilt is no exception. Bad acting, predictable story, and very low budget look just like all the rest. Plus, ESPN plugs the heck out of their movies...I swear I saw a commercial for Tilt once during every commercial break I saw on ESPN the past couple of weeks leading up to it's premier.Anyway, my advice is...don't waste your time watching this movie. Hopefully ESPN will stick to SportsCenter.