Shooting Gallery

Shooting Gallery
Freddie Prinze jr., Ving Rhames, Roselyn Sanchez
Written and directed by Keoni Waxman
102 minutes
kaBOOM Entertainment 2006

If you liked the Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason pool classic The Hustler and if you enjoyed The Color Of Money with Paul Newman and some other guy best known for humping couches on national television, you will have fun watching Shooting Gallery. Shooting Gallery is a violent, sometimes confusing, pool lingo heavy, action movie by writer director Keoni Waxman. Stars Ving Rhames and Freddie Prinze jr (the dreadful Scooby Doo movies and some good movies too) are very good in this action thriller.

Made for the generation raised on video clips and quick cuts, Shooting Gallery is the kind of action thriller you basically sit back and let happen to you. The pool hall lingo is definitely something an audience not familiar with that world will find somewhat confusing (as did the actors when they read the script) but the pool hall lingo segment in the extra features will certainly help you to enjoy Shooting Gallery at its fullest if you watch it that segment first. The lingo is also sometimes superimposed at the beginning of a scene as part of the movie’s moody artistic feel. This is a good looking, violent movie with a complicated plot that Keoni Waxman artfully manages to keep entertaining.

Jericho Hudson, (Freddie Prinze jr.) plays a young pool hustler who gravitates into the pool hall world of legend Cue Ball Carl Bridges (Ving Rhames). Cue Ball soon makes Jericho his top player for a sting against another pool shark, Tenderloin Tony. Add to this mix a dirty cop and you got yourself a lot of action set up.

Everybody warns Jericho about getting involved with local hottie Jezebel (Roselyn Sanchez) but Jericho, always listening to his cue, ignores that advice. Then again, maybe Jericho has plans of his own. Shooting Gallery is basically about a punch of players each running their own individual scheme on one another and may the best shooter win.

Shooting Gallery is a moody thriller. Fans of action movies will be a bit disappointed the movie does not continue with the violence it begins with. Fans of complicated plots with character development and a few surprises here and there will enjoy it.

Extra features include a Making Of, The Long Frame about pool

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