Movie Review: Shade

Among its many meanings – to darken, to cover with shadow, the throwable kind – ‘shade’ also has a meaning within the context of slight. A Shade is a move designed to distract the attention of the audience away from sleight in question. It is this particular meaning that 2003’s poker/crime movie Shade refers.

Which makes a certain kind of sense; Shade is the first and only film so far from writer/director Damian Niemann, who apparently has a background in stage magic. This background shows mostly in the elegant handling of sleight of hand parts of the film and the rather weaker sense of plot, character and theme throughout. All the tricks which appear on screen are not only possible, but according to the Internet Movie Database were all performed by the actors with the exception of one set of close ups in one scene where the directors steps in with his stunt-fingers.

Despite the first time director and somewhat dodgy script the on-screen talent is impressive: Gabriel Byrne, Jamie Foxx, Thandie Newton and Sylvester Stallone. With these players available to him, it’s a little unclear why Niemann went with Stuart Townsend for his lead.

The plot such as it is involves the getting together of a small group of hustlers (Townsend, Newton and Byrne). They set out to conduct a series of cons, but after they rip off the wrong guy, their second job – to out cheat master card shark The Dean – gets a lot more complicated.

Not So Bad It’s Good, But...

Here’s the weird thing: it’s not a great film. At all.

The dialogue is clunky and the characters are cardboard cutouts so bland it’s hard to tell even who is meant to be the bad guy. Which means that in the several scenes where our allegiance as audience members is supposed to slip away, the move is so badly signposted you could miss it, assuming that the massively out of place organ harvesting scene hadn’t already spun you around regarding who you are meant to be rooting for.

That is another issue, the tone is all over the shop, at one end it is a bouncy heist movie with card sharps instead of crims. On the other hand it is a stylised ultra-violent and sweary mob pic. Attempted tough guy dialogue clashes with a trip inside the Magic Castle: the real life secret place where stage magicians hang out.

And if that wasn’t enough you have to handle a great deal of cheese and sleaze, none of which is out there enough to make it work amusingly.

So it’s a bad film. Objectively. And yet…

I kind of liked it. It may be that I went through a phase of being obsessed with conmen and stage magic, and this movie is a kind of replay montage of various classic tricks from those two worlds. It could just be that I am a sucker for the kind of old-fashioned movie poker Shade throws back to; with people string betting, having to raise their cash on the fly when their opponent raises more than their stack. They even play five-card stud in the final game.

The by the numbers plot serves mostly as a showcase for a series of grifts and card tricks which are the main body of the film, and if you do end up enjoying it then most likely it’s these bits of arcana that pull you through.

It was an hour and forty that I don’t regret. Not brain food, not even quality entertainment, but it did something right enough for me to go along for the ride.

Not A Straight Game In Town

Shade is not really a poker movie. It is a movie about confidence trickery. Even though the whole thing takes place around the poker table, like God of Gamblers the game is just a medium, for the main story.

This is not a world where players win the game by skill, but by out cheating one another. As a result the drama is not about tense bluffs or insightful moves. It is about wondering whether the guy across from the hero is savvier.

That and trying to work out who is fooling who. And how.

That said, the game avoids everyone having stupid hands a la Casino Royale. In fact, in terms of the tone of the film, it seems to lean more heavily on the Cincinnati Kid, quoting directly from the Steve McQueen classic and referring to it in Stuart Townsend’s cover story at the end. The hands are readable, but no one gets a royal flush.

So as a poker film it is alright, if not very realistic. I think any card player would get something out of those scenes, and the film does spend a lot of time around the felt.

In Short

I enjoyed it. I think others might enjoy it, but I suspect that group to be so small and specific that I’m not sure I can recommend it.

So make of that what you will.