the audience applauded

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

(11%) A limp waste of both man's and the world's resources who's cinematic release came and quickly vanished away before the glue that stuck the lame and cheap looking advertising posters had even properly dried. This is one of those films that starts OK with hope of things yet to come, but any hope here is badly misplaced. Rebecca Hall plays a ditzy, quite annoying stripper who becomes a Las Vegas high rolling pro gambler within the blink of an eye utilising her Rain man style abilities that are mentioned once and never spoken of ever again. It really is amazing how easy it is to get a well paying job in this movie, so much so that in this universe there's no such thing as poverty and everyone retires at 22. Bruce Willis plays the boss of a group of gambling speculators, and even he managers to annoy with his character who doesn't seem to accept that betting on anything is massively risky and requires nothing more than blind luck to succeed. While Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joshua Jackson are hardly featured and play mostly pointless roles anyway. Overall this managers to be both mundane, dry, and strait-laced, yet still a bit of a mess.

The appeal of this film comes down to whether or not you like Rebecca Hall because she is in just about every scene.I don't find her difficult to watch at all. Apart from a likable performance, she reveals sturdy, tanned thighs in a succession of short shorts. She portrays Beth Raymer, the author of the book on which the film is based, as an infectiously good-natured woman looking for fulfilment in her life, but who is also drawn to exciting and edgy pursuits.She becomes involved with Bruce Willis' character, Dink Heimowitz, a bookmaker, who gambles on just about any kind of sport for high stakes. He gives her a job and she shows aptitude for the work. But Dink is impulsive, moody and married – to Tulip Heimowitz played by Catherine Zeta-Jones.Dink fires Beth to save his marriage. With her newfound gambling skills, Beth goes to work for a far more reckless gambler, Rosie, played by Vince Vaughn. She also meets Jeremy, a comparatively normal guy played by Joshua Jackson. However, Dink remains her mentor and eventually helps her to win a critical wager that ends the film.Movies can involve you in subjects that you know little about whether it's coal mining, bomb disposal, the stock market, deep-sea fishing, football or whatever. Usually, enough knowledge is imparted for the audience to appreciate the subject's relevance to the characters.Gambling and the world of bookmaking are the subjects of "Lay the Favourite", but little is explained.Admittedly, my knowledge of gambling is limited. I even have trouble filling out the form for a Melbourne Cup ticket during my annual trip to the TAB. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, and I must admit I lost track of what was happening in the story even at the end when the whole thing hung on Beth's wager on the basketball game.This is where I think the script could have done a better job in bringing the audience up to speed. After all, Dink needed to explain things to Beth when she started out and it was the perfect opportunity to inform the audience without narration or tedious exposition, but the explanations are rushed at best. Interestingly, director Stephen Frears' brilliant "The Grifters" explained itself perfectly while dealing with a not totally dissimilar subject.With the exception of Beth and Jeremy, the characters are extreme and quirky. They almost seem to be modern-day versions of the Damon Runyon characters out of "Guys and Dolls". Dink, Tulip and Rosie, amongst others, are all fairly idiosyncratic characters, but the quirkiness knob might be turned a little too high.I think the critics were too harsh with this movie. Described as a comedy, the film is more whimsical than outright funny. I can see it's weak points, but it held my attention until the end – I wanted to know what happened even if it was confusing.

If you can get through the excruciating first half of this movie, it's fairly entertaining. The first 45 minutes are confusing and dull as hell, and I almost turned it off (watching on DVD) because I just didn't care about the people or the events unfolding. How can you set a movie in Vegas, and have this amazing cast, and end up with such a mediocre result? It's based on a memoir that, by all accounts, is funny and extremely entertaining, but something clearly has been lost during the translation to the screen. The second half is better - it comes together, the characters become a bit more multi-dimensional, and there finally seems to be some point. But overall, this movie is a wasted opportunity and it's greatest value may be for insomniacs.

The pull of this film for me was the cast; Bruce Willis, Joshua Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughan... and that it looked a funny premise. I didn't realise it was based on a true story - the story of Beth (Beth Raymer) who leaves small town America to make a life for herself in the big city, bright lights of Vegas. I always enjoy stories where girls build themselves up from nothing, doing whatever it takes and I liked Beth's outlook on life well played by Rebecca Hall light-heartedly and convincingly. Her character was flighty and silly, and it is nice to see such a story where horrible things didn't happen to her (lucky!) Other than the language in this film (the worst of which is from the Welsh lips of Ms Zeta-Jones, almost unrecognisable as American, Tulip both in terms of look and character) it's pretty innocent, some topless sunbathing excepting. Bruce Willis wasn't so Bruce Willis as usual and I liked his wayward yet lovable character and he brought some much needed contour to otherwise quite flat performances. During the film I did wonder why everyone was so one-dimensional but as it's a true story, they were I suppose just going with the story that happened - some of the reactions people had were unexplained, as were Beth's seemingly easy transitions. The gorgeous and talented Joshua Jackson was under-utilised in this film as an actor but seeing as it was a character-based biopic there's not much that could be done about that. Vince Vaughan managed to be exactly who he usually is in films, and Laura Prepon as Holly had a good, small part character role which she did really well in.The film is about gambling so I didn't understand all that went on but there were moments where it was quite tense, given what was being done was illegal, but the end was predictable but as it's a true story why shouldn't it be? You cared enough about the characters that you did want a happy ending and it's nice that Beth's good personality and sunny disposition wins out and all is well. As films go - biopic aside - it's not that great as it wasn't particularly challenging or deep, and the main character's antics were naïve and rather silly, so you find her a little annoying, but she was plucky and from the point of view of the real person she did very well for herself. It is, what it is. It entertained for an hour or so but I'm glad I didn't see it at the cinema as I would have been disappointed as it wasn't as funny as I expected. It's definitely an average, middle of the road standard film on all counts; screenplay, direction and performances but it's worth watching.