A young hustler, “Fast Eddie” Felson (Paul Newman) is a hot shot pool player that has really no trick to the game but naturally plays and takes people’s money… Until the wrong type of people start hearing that Eddie is making big money.
Minnesota Fats challenges Eddie to a game of nine ball pool, and hustles him worse than Eddie has ever hustled anyone in his life. Eddie has to learn to play and get his confidence back or just quit the whole thing period, “well get the good stuff and lets watch.”
Newman and Gleason truly show you how talented they both are. In this film, they mostly do all their own pool shots, besides one shot, which was performed by renowned pool legend, Willie Mosconi. This movie has many things going for it: the actors, the directing and the overall story. The theme is to never think you’re the best at something because there is always someone better and more experienced than you. If you’re going to cash in your chips to show you’re the best, you better be right, and that is what makes this film so good.
You have the hot shot Eddie and the calm, cool and collected Minnesota Fats, and Fats doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone and that is what Eddie doesn’t understand. To also make the story even better, George C. Scott, who is also in the film, plays Bert Gordon, a gambler
who manipulates and hurts Eddie, and that is what gives this movie the edge it has, and that Eddie has to learn who his real friends are, and who are his enemies, or the people he knows are only there to profit from him and hurt him. The directing in this movie is outstanding in the dark smoke-filled rooms of pool halls, where all you see and hear are the sound of pool balls crashing together on the hard strike of a “sledge hammer break” (Color of Money).
As well as the precision of the artists who plan their shots like a master chess player, and the bulls who just play fast and quick, the pool shots are talentedly filmed of the close ups and the special angles made to almost set you on the edge of a pool table as if you yourself are 5 inches away, watching these balls look like wrecking balls on a construction site. I love the emotion that is in this movie.
Newman is so conflicted and no one is there to help him or guide him, as well as the tone this film has of, “it’s a dark world we live in” and “sometimes the only person that can save you”. In certain situations you are yourself, but you have to believe in yourself. I give this film 9.5 overall, and 8 gold bars for acting, 7.5 gold bars for writing, and 9 gold bars for directing. I will see you the next time you want to come back to the movies.