Lay the Favorite

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Lay the Favorite
Lay the Favorite FilmPoster.jpeg
UK theatrical release poster
Directed byStephen Frears
Screenplay byD.V. DeVincentis
Based onLay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling
by Beth Raymer
Produced byRandall Emmett
George Furla
Paul Trijbits
StarringBruce Willis
Rebecca Hall
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Joshua Jackson
CinematographyMichael McDonough
Edited byMick Audsley
Music byJames Seymour Brett
Production
companies
  • Likely Story
  • Emmett/Furla Films
  • Ruby Films
  • Jackson Investment Group
  • Lipsync Productions
  • Random House Films[1]
Distributed by
Release date
  • January 21, 2012 (2012-01-21) (Sundance Film Festival)
  • December 7, 2012 (2012-12-07) (United States)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million
Box office$1,576,687

Lay the Favorite (promoted as Lay the Favourite in the UK) is a 2012 American comedy-drama film starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joshua Jackson. Based on Beth Raymer's memoir of the same title, the film follows a young, free-spirited woman as she journeys through the legal and illegal world of sports gambling. The film was directed by Stephen Frears.

Plot[]

Beth is becoming bored with her life in Florida, doing stripteases and lap dances for private customers. Her dad, Jerry, tells her to follow her dream of moving to Las Vegas, where she seeks honest work as a cocktail waitress.

A young woman named Holly, who lives at the same Vegas motel, arranges for Beth to meet Dink Heimowitz, a professional gambler who follows the fast-changing odds on sporting events and employs assistants at Dink, Inc., to lay big-money bets for him. Beth is intrigued and it turns out she has a good mind for numbers, easily grasping Dink's system and becoming his protégée and he views her as his lucky charm. When Beth begins expressing a more personal interest in her much-older mentor, Dink's sharp-tongued wife, Tulip, lets it be known in no uncertain terms that she wants Beth out of her husband's life. As a result, from pressure from his wife, Dink lets Beth go.

A young journalist from New York, Jeremy, meets Beth in the casino and they immediately hit it off and she makes plans to move back to New York with him, having nothing left in Las Vegas to keep her there. She is hooked on the excitement and income that gambling provides and backs out suddenly whenever Dink, facing a heavy losing streak without his lucky charm, asks her to come back to work for him.

Whenever Dink's losing streak continues even with Beth's return, he has a meltdown and fires everyone in his office. Having enough, Beth goes to New York to be with Jeremy but accepts a similar job for a rival bookie called Rosie. Gambling is illegal in New York and Dink worries about Beth. Rosie then sets up a legal operation based in Curaçao and Beth goes down to help run the betting. Rosie and his men are more interested in drugs and hookers and Beth wants out. A New York gambler, Dave Greenberg, is in debt for sixty-thousand dollars and may be working for the Feds.

Dink and his wife Tulip come to New York to help out Beth and Jeremy. They strong arm Greenberg and he gives them a hot tip on a New Jersey basketball team. The team wins in the last second by one point and everyone clears their gambling debts. The movie is a true story based on Beth Raymer's memoir who in real life goes to college and becomes a writer.

Cast[]

Production[]

Random House Films took the gambling memoir to Likely Story and Emmett/Furla Films to adapt the film.[2] Filming began in April 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.[citation needed] Shooting also took place in New Orleans, and New York City.[citation needed] The Weinstein Company purchased distribution rights at Sundance Film Festival for a fall 2012 release.[2] Wild Bunch was the film's international sales company.[1]

Reception[]

The film received negative reviews from critics. It holds an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 reviews.[3]

Lawsuit[]

While the film was received poorly at the box office, it was picked up for streaming by Netflix and Amazon Video. As a result of this, mapmaker Victor Baker sued Warner Bros. as the film, which is set in the country of Curaçao, used one of Baker's antique-style watercolor maps of the country as part of the set decorations. His lawsuit demanded either statutory damages or fair market value of the licensing fee for use of the map.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Chang, Justin (January 22, 2012). "Lay the Favorite". Variety. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Lewis, Andy (February 23, 2012). "How Publishers Bolster Their Bottom Line by Retaining Film Rights". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  3. ^ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lay_the_favorite
  4. ^ "Top 20 Movies That Lead to Lawsuits", WatchMojo.Com, available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc8qsZnlTHo (Retrieved 2021-03-29.)

External links[]

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