The Pacino Myth holds that in the Church of Latter-Day Al, this patron saint for a generation of actors merely bellows and mugs when a camera dolly wheels into range. That he accepts only roles that allow him to chew scenery, munch walls and swallow co-stars whole.
This, of course, is bullshit.
But it appears to be true when we allow his more subtle work to slide by with nary a blink of recognition. So even for an icon—especially an aging one (65) who needs, say, a slab of Matthew McConaughey beefcake to draw peach-fuzz moviegoers—the Hollywood game applies: Star in big-budget crowd-pleasers, give 'em the Al they love (and love to deride), then trade up for the industry tolerance to make more personal projects.
The Jekyll & Hyde syndrome: For every Devil's Advocate, a Merchant of Venice; every Any Given Sunday, a Looking for Richard (a docu-valentine to Shakespeare); every stink bomb like The Recruit; a People I Know (a Pacino pearl featuring his exquisite, nuanced performance as a schlumpy New York publicist); every Heat, an Angels in America (his Emmy-winner).
The pendulum swings back with Two for the Money, a Pacino slam-dance, his Mr. Hyde side spinning like a pinwheel of bold acting colors, a one-man carnival of onscreen fireworks. After dying of AIDS as Roy Cohn in Angels, he's entitled.
Money is a minor-league, seriocomic Wall Street replanted in the sports-betting world, Pacino its Gordon Gekko, again riffing on the shady mentor he played to Keanu Reeves' shyster in Devil's Advocate, Colin Farrell's spook in The Recruit, Johnny Depp's faux-mobster in Donnie Brasco and Chris O'Donnell's man-in-the-making in Scent of a Woman. This time it's McConaughey's fresh-faced Brandon Lang, an ex-athlete, career capsized by an injury, whose talent as a novice oddsmaker catches the savvy eye of Pacino's Walter Abrams, a bookie bigwig who enlists Brandon in his kick-ass cadre of sports-bet prognosticators. As in Advocate, it'll be a ride of dizzying professional heights and seductive personal delights bottoming out into adversarial animosity and double-cross.
Yes, you've seen it. Genre movie, genre roles, genre mentality, no pretensions to originality, Oscars or art. Just entertainment. You know how it'll climax, student teaching the teacher, or eschewing capitalistic ambition for moralistic values. It's not trying to bolt off in startlingly new directions, nor does it need to, as long as the journey is jolly. And, overcoming a fizzled finale and contradictory attitude toward addiction—handled both dramatically and comically—this one is, thank Al.
Following a stopover in our neon back yard, action shifts to Manhattan, where Lang meets—and is wowed by—Walter and his betting acumen. "These are people," he tells his protégé, "who risk what they can't afford for what they can't have." Reviving the considerable comic chops he flexed in Author! Author! and Simone, Pacino maximizes Dan Gilroy's bright, biting script—the quips detonate like bubble-wrap under a 14-wheeler. "That's the kind of losing that makes your asshole pucker to the size of a decimal point!" he declares with puckish glee. After suffering chest pains, he calms himself, sighing contentedly, with a cigarette drag.
Director D.J. Caruso shows us a frenetically glam Gotham through a testosterone lens, from the betting parlors and fevered bettors to the ritzy Nobu and backstage at Walter's cable sports-advising show. A surrogate dad-son bond grows between Walter and his new star, Brandon goggle-eyed at the women, money and status, Walter swearing to "build an empire" around his instinctual oddsmaker. But, laid low by arrogance, Brandon gets an ominous peek at Walter's ruthlessness during a flashpoint of anger (another Pacino signature line, here, "If you want something from me, you're gonna have to RIP IT out of my talons!") that exposes fissures in their relationship and subtlety sets them on a collision course. It all unfolds with unflagging zest, the pain and passion of the sports-betting universe underscoring the maneuvering.
McConaughey, all Southern silkiness, deep dimples and curly locks, makes love to the camera with charisma to burn. Jeremy Piven oozes oily appeal as an envious fellow odds-picker, and Armand Assante is a seriously scary client who brutally informs Brandon when his golden touch rusts. As Walter's loyal, exasperated, ex-junkie wife, Russo, who's carved a sidelight career out of playing mature, sexy mates to the likes of Mel and Pierce, excels again, though her luminescence and depth make you wish anew that Hollywood knew what to do with this older, beautiful, intelligent actress.
But this film is Pacino at his red-meat best. His hyper-aggressive, post-Godfather posture has been set in entertaining stereotype, his brooding early triumphs ensconced in history.
What's left to amaze us, assuming we bother to look, are his under-the-radar surprises. The ones that give the lie to the Pacino Myth.