Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Lay the Favorite Blu-ray Movie Review

Know When to Fold 'Em

Reviewed by Michael Reuben February 28, 2013

Lay the Favorite is based on an autobiography of the same title by journalist Beth Raymer that has been published with several different subtitles, including "A Memoir of Gambling" and "A Story of Gamblers". An intertitle at the beginning of the film states that "As luck would have it, the following story is true." The main character, played by Rebecca Hall, is named "Beth Raymer". Despite the usual legal disclaimer at the end of the credits about incidents and dialogue being fictionalized for dramatic purposes, we're meant to accept the story as fact.

That might be easier to do if the film used unknown faces instead of being stuffed with familiar actors, including several bona fide movie stars in the persons of Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughn. The director, Stephen Frears, has plenty of experience working with famous names in films that include Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters and The Queen, but here the material wilts under the wattage of A-listers trying to "stretch" while taking a break from the industry grind in a quirky independent project.

On a whim, and with the support of her equally flaky father (Corbin Bernsen), Beth leaves her Florida home, where she's barely been earning a living as an "outcalls only" stripper, to try her fortune as a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. Having apparently done no research, she's shocked to discover that Vegas is a union town. On the advice of a new acquaintance, Holly (Laura Prepon), Beth applies for a job with Dink Heimowitz (Willis) of Dink, Inc., a sports gambling operation. Though initially flustered by the chaos of Dink's operation, which looks and sounds like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in miniature, Beth finds herself buzzed from the adrenaline. It turns out that Beth has a good head for figures. She and Dink take a liking to each other. Beth is hooked.

The bulk of the film follows Beth as she meanders from one adventure to another in the world of professional gambling. She gets advice, money and appreciation from Dink when he's winning, tantrums and abuse when he's not. From Dink's wife, Tulip (Zeta-Jones), she gets jealousy, claw marks and, eventually, a Tulip-mandated discharge, at which point she finds herself a too-good-to-be-true journalist boyfriend from New York named Jeremy (Fringe's Joshua Jackson).

After some false starts, Beth winds up in New York working for a fast-talking bookie named Rosie (Vaughn, with bad hair and a credible Long Island accent), who is the one guy Dink warned her to avoid. Rosie is sufficiently impressed that he puts Beth in charge of his new offshore facility in Curaçao (yes, the Caribbean island), where bookmaking is legal, but Beth is already feeling her life spiraling out of control. When one of her clients, Greenberg (John Carroll Lynch), threatens her with legal trouble after he sustains a big loss, Beth has to seek help from the mentor who first got her started in the business.

Frears knows how to set up a scene and keep the action moving, and the actors do what they can with their parts, especially Hall, who is almost unrecognizable from her more traditional characters in The Town and Vicky Christina Barcelona. Her kewpie-voice Beth walks a fine line between empty-headed ditz and smart cookie. The film's essential problem is the script by D.V. DeVincentis (who wrote the screenplay for Frears's High Fidelity), which doesn't have a clear point of view. If Lay the Favorite wants to educate us about the mechanics of professional sports gambling, as Martin Scorsese taught us about the operations of Vegas in Casino, it's far too cursory. If it wants to show us the seductions and perils of gambling as an addiction, its tone is far too light-hearted and no one suffers any serious consequences, although Laura Prepon's Holly comes close.

Indeed, a number of the deleted scenes suggest that Holly originally had a larger role. With her deep voice, worldly tone and resigned demeanor, Holly would have been the ideal character through which to view the darker side of easy come, easy go. A movie about Holly would have made for a grittier, more engaging and more memorable experience than Lay the Favorite.

Lay the Favorite Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lay the Favorite was shot by Michael McDonough, the talented cinematographer of such digital works as Winter's Bone and Albert Nobbs. According to IMDb, the film was shot with the Sony CineAlta F35, which is consistent with the final product after post-production on a digital intermediate. Anchor Bay's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers a clean, sharp, colorful image without noise or artifacts, which does a nice job of capturing the daily life of Vegas without overemphasizing the glitz and glamor of which, at least as told in the film, Beth Raymer saw very little. The film's palette becomes somewhat darker and more monochromatic for the New York scenes, but otherwise the cinematography is not overtly stylized. The photography is naturalistic, and that's what the Blu-ray delivers.

Lay the Favorite Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The best parts of Lay the Favorite's DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack are those conveying a cacophony of voices shouting over each other, usually in Dink, Inc.'s offices. The mix effectively separates the individual voices so that they criss-cross, without dissolving into aural mush. Otherwise, the sound mix is functional and unremarkable, with little for the surrounds to do except provide a general sense of ambiance and add depth to the serviceable score by James Seymour Brett (Planet 51).

Lay the Favorite Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Since Lay the Favorite was acquired for distribution by the Weinstein Company, it has been released by Anchor Bay in TWC's usual format, i.e., mastered with BD-Java but with the omission of bookmarking capabilities. Someday they'll learn.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:41): It's not hard to imagine any or all of these scenes being included, although collectively they probably would have damaged the film's pacing.
• Outside Darren's House
• Beth & Holly at the Café
• Best Job Ever
• What're You Doing?
• Don't Get Old
• Beth Phones Dad
• New York Is Hot
• Beth & Jeremy
• Beth Calls Rosie
• Beth Visits Doctor
• Dink's Voicemail



• Additional Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays trailers for The Details, Bachelorette and Butter. These can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Lay the Favorite Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lay the Favorite is a pleasant diversion, but it doesn't add up to much. Its cast and director are good enough to make the experience mildly entertaining, but it evaporates as soon as the credits roll. Unless you're a Bruce Willis completist or have a crush on Rebecca Hall, a rental is all I'd suggest.