TIFF11 REVIEW: The Odds [2011]

“You wanna see a card trick?” The Toronto International Film Festival media blurb for Simon Davidson’s debut feature, The Odds, likens it to a combination of Rounders and Brick. While this statement is true to a point, the comparisons remain solely on the surface. Poker plays a very small role—as gambling in general looms large—and while the plot concerns teenagers who are way over their heads in adult matters and murder, the hyper-reality of Rian Johnson’s contemporary classic is nowhere to be seen. Such broad generalizations end up doing the…

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