Poker Movie \"The Grand\" Has Limited Opening Tonight

Poker pro Phil Hellmuth makes a cameo appearance as "The Poker Brat," AKA himself, in the poker movie "The Grand." (Bodog Beat Image)

The much-anticipated and long-debated poker movie entitled The Grand opens for a limited showing in New York City and Los Angeles this evening. What has been debated so much about this movie is whether or not it's actually worth the anticipation (zing!).

Based on the opinions of most movie and poker pundits, there really hasn't been a good poker movie to come out since Rounders (starring Matt Damon and featuring the unforgettable "Johnny fu$k!ing Chan" line). Not that there haven't been any released, cos there have been. They've pretty much all failed to connect with their intended audiences, including Lucky You (starring Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana), which somehow managed to land squarely in the barren ground between romantic saps and poker fans.

However, and as always, hope springs eternal for The Grand. A different take on the traditional poker movie as it approaches poker as a toungue-in-cheek, satirical mockumentary, a la Best in Show or (This is) Spinal Tap. The movie "stars" pretty much every poker-playing celebrity that's ever appeared on the TV show Celebrity Poker Showdown as well as several others, including David Cross, Jason Alexandar, Ray Romano, Richard Kind, Cheryl Hines, Werner Herzog, Gabe Kaplan, Michael McKean (mockumentary veteran of Spinal Tap), Hank Azaria, Dennis Farina, Chris Parnell and Shannon Elizabeth.

Making cameo appearances in the movie as themselves are poker pros Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Phil Laak and Phil Gordon.

Advanced reviews of the movie are mixed, but movie critics are a jaded cynical bunch anyway, so who cares what they think. What will really matter is if the average poker fan get's the dry humor that is a mockumentary and appreciates it enough to recommend it. We'll just have to see how it fares at the box office.