The Big Town

The story is predictable, but the style had me on the edge of my seat.

The 1950s atmosphere is vivid and the cast is solid, except Diane Lane, who saves most of her energy for the unnecessary sex scenes. The story builds a good deal of momentum and then falls completely apart in the last 20 minutes or so. [09 Oct 1987, p.21]

First-time director Ben Bolt, son of writer Robert Bolt, evokes excitement with the gambling scenes, but the climactic shooting is poorly staged, and the epilogue is a letdown. [21 Oct 1987]

This huge cliche of a movie isn't even a distant relation of films like The Color of Money, which can actually make you root for hustlers. The Big Town only proves we've gone back to the 1950's one time too many.

The Big Town aims to be The Hustler with dice, but it's just a lot of craps -- a laughable, overlong look at a small-town gambler's comeuppance at the hands of Chicago's high rollers.

The plot is rather basic when you remove the clutter. Boy gets busted, needs girl to save his soul. It's all stiff and forced. So are the performances. [10 Oct 1987, p.B6]

There's a lot of money in the sets, costumes, cinematography and soundtrack of The Big Town, but the movie has no soul. [29 Sep 1987, p.4D]