Worth the Gamble

As with Penn's previous feature, the prankish Incident at Loch Ness, The Grand's obvious comparison point is Christopher Guest's mock-doc explorations of the obsessive fringe — movies whose subjects address a camera crew that may exist only in their spotlight-hungry psyches. Penn plays fast and loose with the format, and the improvisational seams really show when he has to advance the plot, especially in the clumsy twist that determines the final showdown. Even then, however, there's more to watch than just the turn of the cards, like the merrily hammy psycho act of Penn's Loch Ness collaborator Werner Herzog — who shows up, believe it or not, as a brass-knuckled, bunny-stroking nut known as the German. Put Herzog at the same table as Hines, Harrelson, Parnell, Cross, and Farina, and poker on film starts to look a lot less dull. Imagine what they could do with Monopoly.