Lay The Favorite Movie Review

Lay The Favorite Movie Poster — Lay The Favorite

I don’t write movie reviews very often. Between my lack of patience to watch movies and minimal movies about casinos and gambling there’s little to write about. That said, I was stoked to see “Lay The Favorite” when I first heard about it. People seemed to enjoy the book and the story behind “Lay The Favorite” which is about sports betting and it was mostly set in Las Vegas – two things I like a bit too much.

I saw the trailer in 2012 but hadn’t heard anything about the movie until I saw it that it was available on Netflix last week. That was surprising with the big names like Bruce Willis involved as a main character of the movie.

Before I saw the trailer for “Lay The Favorite” I thought this movie had my name written all over it. The trailer didn’t look very good but the subject matter would make the movie interesting, right? Sure. Kinda. For a while. The premise of the movie would be the same as the trailer, so how bad could it be?

Ex-private dancer Beth aspires to be a Las Vegas cocktail waitress, when she falls in with Dink, a sports gambler. Sparks fly as she proves to be something of a gambling prodigy–much to the ire of Dink’s wife, Tulip.

“Lay The Favorite” set the story of a stripper (Beth) going to Las Vegas looking for a new lease on life and a little inspiration to find a little direction was fine. Beth’s introduction to sports betting was fine too. The movie was still moving at a nice pace and I was still focused and interested. Beth meeting Dink (Bruce Willis) and the initial story of her learning how to bet on sports was even good. The first 15-20 minutes setting up “Lay The Favorite” were okay. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.

I was wrong. This is where the movie fell apart for me. The movie stopped focusing on sports betting, Vegas and friendship and devolved into a wannabe rom-com. There wasn’t much rom and, besides a few funny lines from Vince Vaughn, there wasn’t much com. The movie focused too much on a love story between a 60-year-old and a 20-something year old.

I was so bored by the movie that I decided to do something I never do when I’m watching a movie – multi-task. I use movies as a way to escape for 90 minutes but I ended up multi-tasking through most of the second half of the movie. I haven’t read the book for “Lay The Favorite” but I imagine that the book went into more detail on the things I would be into – sports betting and moving to Vegas.

To get a real understanding of “Lay The Favorite” see what Netflix recommends I watch next. WTF?!

Lay The Favorite Netflix

“Lay The Favorite” is the kind of movie that I’d watch again if I hit the end of my Netflix queue, which stands at 57 right now (meaning that I won’t). I’m glad I watched “Lay The Favorite” because I was curious to see the movie but that’s really about the only positive takeaway from the movie. Now we know what to expect the next time a movie starts with “Unskinny Bop”.

Here are some links for “Lay The Favorite”: