Tag Archives: billiards film

Double Down South

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“You come to shoot pool?”

“I didn’t come to adopt a puppy.”

That opening, sharp-tongued retort suggests viewers may be in for two hours of ratatat pool-playing. And that wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Double Down South, which premiered at the 2022 Newport Beach Film Festival, is very much a billiards film, full of bank shots, hotshots, cheap shots, and potshots. But, if you’re expecting eightball, nineball, straight pool, three-cushion billiards, sixball, goriziana, Russian pyramid, tenfold carom, or any of the other myriad forms of the sport which have populated the billiards film genre, then pencils out and take a seat: you’ve got a new billiards education coming. 

Double Down South movie posterWritten and directed by Tom Shulman, the Oscar-winning writer of Dead Poets Society, Double Down South takes place in the rarified world of keno billiards. Now, I’ve been writing about billiards and film since 2013, and for the record, I had never heard of the sport either. Keno billiards has a certain mythical folklore surrounding it. Even within diehard online billiards communities (e.g., AZBilliards), few have played it, some dismiss it (as largely a game of luck), and many have not heard of it. But, it’s most definitely real, and one requiring real skill. As someone once said, “If ya want to know how to turn a big stack of cash into a little stack of cash….start playing [keno billiards].”

The game is played on a pool table, with the two far corner pockets covered by a keno game board, consisting of rows of numbered holes. Players then trade shots, attempting to hit the billiards balls into corresponding or predetermined numbered pockets on the keno board. Rules are almost always local, but generally involve lots of betting and doubling of bets based on making the shots. 

Keno billiards likely began in the early 1900s, during a wave of billiards board games, with names such as Amos and Andy, Hatta Boy, Pigeon Pool, Roulo, Scotch Pool, Star, and Turf. Keno billiards was among the most popular, though today there are only a couple of manufacturers of the board, and you’d be hard pressed to locate a (legal) game.

Double Down South 21 500x300.jpgBut, if you wanted to find an illegal game circa 1998, travel to (the fictitious town of) Kingsville, Georgia, the “keno capital of the world,” and head to Nick’s, an antebellum, dilapidated plantation house that now acts as a pool hall and diner for many bearded, beer-bellied, bubbas.  

Into this Southern backwoods fraternity enters Diana (Lili Simmons), a bomber-jacket-and-beanie-cap wearing, belly-ring sporting stunner, whose drop-dead looks and slo-mo Southern drawl could raise Stonewall Jackson from his grave. Diana is the one who didn’t come to adopt a puppy, though it’s pretty obvious she didn’t randomly show up just to shoot pool, either. 

Double Down South 11Allegedly, she’s come to get good at keno. It’s a paper-thin story, but that doesn’t bother Nick (Kim Coates), the racist, misogynistic, proprietor, who’s only too glad to have such a hot piece of action as the main roadside attraction at his establishment. Indeed, Diana’s not two bites into her catfish sandwich, before Nick is propositioning her with a rednecked, blueballed, plan that’s all about making some green. In exchange for room, board, and teaching her the game of keno, Nick will promote Diana and stakehorse her for a percent of her winnings. It’s a harebrained proposal, all the more absurd given it’s based on watching her pocket only a few shots. With minimal deliberation, Diana accepts, setting in motion a dangerous and tense partnership.

So begins Diana’s tutelage, under the one working eye of good-natured Little Nick (Igby Rigney). In record time, she masters the game’s nuances and defeats a rogue’s gallery of high-stakes keno billiards bad boys, including Nick’s former show pony Douche, a lecherous “basement psycho” named Harvey Block, Tulsa, Rebel, and even Tony “Rooster” Rose. Along the way, she wins the warmth and admiration of Little Nick, the father Old Nick, the mansion matron Sheila, and all the local yokels, who are as impressed with her skills as they are mesmerized by her curves.

Double Down South posterBut, the real target is Beaumont DuBinion (Justin Marcel McManus), a Black keno champion, who allegedly once cheated Nick and paid with a beatdown and the loss of both kidneys. The hatred runs hot, and Nick wants nothing more than to beat Beaumont once more (and maybe for the South to rise again). 

Beneath the baize there’s a lot happening in this genre-bending Southern Gothic, Western, Sports drama thriller.  While the “surprise” ending is more predictable than a muggy Mississippi summer, Double Down South works primarily because of the intense characterizations and cat-and-mouse dynamics between the film’s two leads, Diana and Nick. 

Ms. Simmons, largely a TV actress known for recurring roles in Banshee and Ray Donovan, imbues Diana with mystery and feminine toughness, while also showing complexity and vulnerability, as her motives are continually questioned. Her precarious alliance with Nick, played with hotblooded, unpredictable volatility by Mr. Coates, keeps the tension high. Viewers who enjoy Mr. Coates as Tig Trager, the fearless motorcycle club sergeant at arms from Sons of Anarchy, will not be disappointed.

As for the keno billiards, credit likely goes to cinematographer Alan Claudillo, who ensures the game playing, with its dull-but-difficult shots, does not turn into a putt-putt snorefest, but rather maintains some level of dramatic tension.  It’s a challenging feat, and the lack of single continuous shots demonstrates how hard it is to film expert keno billiards, but ignoring any purist outcries, the sequences do not distract from the tempo.

Double Down South is having its live, digital premiere on February 24. To learn more about the movie, visit its website. A special thank you to Kim Dixon for providing me with advanced access to write this review.

A Nonet of Nineballs

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9-Ball in The Color of MoneyWhile the masses know the game of 8-Ball, the fanatics know the game of 9-Ball. Often characterized as a more difficult, more demanding game, 9-Ball exudes a heightened exclusiveness. It’s the cool kids’ clubhouse, the hipsters’ hideaway. Is it any wonder that Rihanna’s character in Ocean’s 8 is named Nineball?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the billiards movie genre’s most famous members – The Hustler, The Color of Money, and Poolhall Junkies – all focus on 9-Ball, even if it’s not spelled out in the title.

But, what happens to the mystique when everyone is obsessing over it? As it turns out, nineball is the focus of more than just the above billiards trifecta; in fact, 9-ball (in all its lexical variants) is in the title of nine different films and TV shows! So, chalk your cue, and get ready for a Nonet of Nineball-Named movies.

Nine Ball (1995, 2023)

Nine Ball (2023) movieThe newest addition to this cinematic ennead is Nine Ball, which has a history considerably more interesting than the movie itself. Shot on Super 16 in 1995 for a budget of approximately $30,000, the movie was an alternate for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, the opening at Sundance didn’t emerge; moreover, with no offers for distribution, the producer Rich Grasso, who also acts in the film, could not raise the additional $250,000 to finish the movie. The unfinished negative sat in a closet for 25 years, until the boredom of COVID prompted Mr. Grasso to give Nine Ball another look. With advances in technology, and streaming options that didn’t exist a quarter century ago, Mr. Grasso was able to complete his billiards opus, which is now available to watch on Amazon Prime. The movie stars Kenny Johnson (S.W.A.T.; The Shield) in his first feature film, though some of the other actors (e.g., Eugene Williams, Steven Benjamin Wise), who did not remotely achieve the same subsequent level of stardom, were far more compelling.

Nine Ball’s storyline is fairly rote. A quintet of friends in a small town find joy in their weekly get-togethers at a local dive bar. They have free access to alcohol and the pool table, where 9-ball is not a game, it’s a “religion.” But, beneath the booze-infested bonhomie, there is tremendous tension: economic, racial, relationships, dead-end ambitions. For all the talk about 9-ball, very little is actually shot, as players’ turns keep getting interrupted by drunken rage, scatalogical jokes, and bro-bonding. Most of the movie feels more like a play, with the five characters joshing and jostling for space in the single barroom. There are peaks of entertaining or dramatic dialogue, but they are undercut by the annoying narrative technique in which ghosts of the characters cut between past and present or hover in the scenes’ backgrounds.

Special thanks to director Victor Bevine and producer Rich Grasso for their interviews.

9 Ball (2012)

9Ball movieThe grand poobah of nineball-named movies, or at least the most well-known, is this APA-sponsored, Jennifer Barretta-starring film, with special appearances by Jeanette Lee and Allison Fisher.  The movie broke ground for casting a professional player (Baretta) as the main character, rather than in a supporting role to assist with the technical shots. It also focused on a female protagonist, which is a genre rarity. And, not surprisingly but most unusually, 9 Ball sought to portray pool as a professional sport. The actual movie was rather polarizing for audiences. In my original review, I rated it meh but acknowledged its obvious love and respect for the sport of billiards.

9 Ball (2012)

Directed by Isabel Logroño Carrascosa, this unimaginative Spanish short film is instantly forgettable. The movie revolves around a trio of characters, who are involved in an insipid game of 9 ball, while they seek to double cross one another. I don’t know what was a bigger distraction: the hair metal t-shirts the two players sported or their infuriating inability to make more than two shots in a row. The film is available to watch here.

9-Ball (2015)

9 Ball (2015) short filmA life of decadence. The ultimate price to pay for those sins. A game of 9-ball to decide it all. Blah, blah, blah…yeesh, that sounds like trope overload. Nonetheless, I’ve been searching for this Australian short film on-and-off for close to three years. I even successfully connected with the director, Darwin Brooks, in 2020, who committed to tracking down a copy for me.  But, his email is no longer active, nor is BMC Productions, the company behind the film. This movie is officially WANTED. If you have any information on it, please contact me.

Nine-Ball (2004)

Nine Ball (2005) tv seriesStretching across 20 episodes, the Taiwanese television series Nine-Ball (aka Billiard Boy) focuses on You Li, a country boy / billiards hustler, who falls in love with a girl on the internet, thereby provoking the rage of her jealous ex, Kuai Da. Kuai Da happens to work for Shao Shi Enterprise, a company that has a reputation in acquiring pool halls using violence. Not surprisingly, Kuai Da seeks to leverage his commercial power to destroy You Li and the things he loves. Resentment, bad mojo, and lots of billiards ensues, but unfortunately, I’ve seen none of it because I can’t locate the series. The only discoverable relic is a music video for the series’ theme song, “I’m Not A Hero,” by David Chen. This series is officially WANTED. If you have any information on it, please contact me.

Nineball (2007)

Why does the film’s narrator, a self-described “billiards junkie,” cover his face with a rag and get called a “monster” by the local children? Why does he use his spoon as a cue stick to pocket raw potatoes? And, why does he introduce us to a crew of 9-ball players who compensate for their missing arms by using other parts of their bodies (or others’ bodies) to support their cue strokes?

billiards short filmsRicky Aragon’s hilarious, crude, and jarring 14-minute film rapid-fires the questions, continuously disorienting the viewer with ever-changing music and characters. For a moment, we’re doing mathematics with billiards balls. Then, our narrator is at the 2006 Phillipines World Championship, having a Forrest Gump moment, as he appears behind winner Ronato Alcano or takes a selfie with referee Michaela Tabb. Then, it’s on to the narrator’s true love, Donita, the girl with the “billiard boobs.”

What is going on? Hold tight. It all resolves with a 9-ball match, where our narrator’s puerile attempts to distract his opponent cause a freak accident – a lodging of the nineball in the narrator’s nose. He is a victim of his own obsession, deformed by his passion. Yet, the film’s true punchline comes in the final 30 seconds. As the befuddled doctor struggles to select a tool that might remove the ball, a cue stick magically descends from above. It is the narrator’s hero and savior – (the very real) Efren “The Magician” Bayes, who shoots the nine, grossly dislodging the ball, along with the surrounding nasal gelatinous membrane. It lands on a billiards table with a thud, but no one stops. The grotesque ball becomes part of the game’s action, proving there is nothing that can interfere with the indefatigable relationship between billiards and Filipinos.

A special thank you to director Enrico “Ricky” Aragon and the Cinemalaya Foundation, which secured a copy of the film for me to watch.

Nine-Ball (2008)

This Swedish short film is very unlike the others in this group. Directed by Nikolina Gillgren, the movie is about neuropsychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, Asperger’s and Tourette’s Syndrome, and how people who have these disorders, like the film’s lead character David, struggle with social dysfunctional behavior and social exclusion. A pool hall, and some awkward games, provides the milieu for discussing the fear, loneliness, and the discomfort that comes from social exclusion. My full review of Nine-Ball is here.

Ride the 9 (defunct)

Fingers were crossed, wood was knocked on, and stray eyelashes were wished upon that Ride the 9 would make it to the silver screen. Blake West and Jordan Marder first started teasing YouTube audiences in 2011 with a trailer (seen below) for this billiards movie that sported a Guy Ritchie vibe, a killer soundtrack, gritty New Orleans set locations, and jaw-dropping trick shots courtesy of Florian “Venom” Kohler. While there were many fits and stops, as late as 2016, hopes were still high that the film would find funding and get made. But, unfortunately, this one rode the 9 to the cinematic graveyard. My original write-up on Ride the 9, based on interviews with Mr. West and Mr. Marder, is here. 

Behind the Nine (2003)

Behind the NineA great cruelty of the industry is that Ride the 9 could not get made, but Behind the Nine found its way into home theaters. This suffocating, molasses-paced film focuses on an underground two-week, 9-ball tournament that pays $500,000 to the winner and $500,000 to the organizer, who puts on the tournament to “make ends meet.” The movie collapses under the weight of terrible acting; a boring and distasteful script riddled with racist and homophobic language; unimaginative cinematography and direction; and – the coup de grâce – a preposterous and stultifying approach to billiards. My full review of Behind the Nine is here.

Someone once said, “In 9-ball, the only thing harder than the shot is trying to hide your smile when you sink it.” That may be true, but it seems equally difficult to come up with a movie title that does not call out the nine.  Maybe change the focus to 8-ball? Oh wait, that’s not a good idea either…

The Billiard Ball

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As portrayed in contemporary pop culture, billiards has become surprisingly lowbrow; a game primarily associated with smoke-filled pool halls, barroom brawls, garish intimacy, and/or fast con trick shots.  The irony, of course, is that billiards was once entertainment strictly for the gentry, popularized by royalty, such as King Louis XI of France, who introduced the first indoor billiards table.

The Billiard BallIn literature, the cultivated origins are equally evident, certainly ever since Shakespeare wrote “let’s to billiards” in Antony and Cleopatra (1606). Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Lewis Carroll are just some of the canonical authors who appreciated and fervently played the sport.  Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, wrote about billiards in his tale, “My Own True Ghost Story” (1888).  So, too, did Italo Calvino in “Le Joueur de Billiard,” (1956); Winnie-the-Pooh creator A.A. Milne in “A Billiard Lesson,” (1914); and Wallace Stegner in “The Blue Winged Teale” (1950).

One of the most notable billiards-themed short stories is “The Billiard Ball,” penned in 1966 by Isaac Asimov, the Hugo Award winning science fiction author, who wrote or edited more than 500 books, including I, Robot, which was made into a movie starring Will Smith. “The Billiard Ball” appeared in his 1968 collection Asimov’s Mysteries.

In “The Billiard Ball,” a journalist recounts the events leading up to the discovery of an anti-gravity device in the mid-21st century.  The device results from the efforts and rivalry between billionaire Edward Bloom, who invented the device, and Nobel Prize winning physicist and Professor James Priss, who discovered the theories underlying the device.

Throughout the story, the two men successfully put their differences on hold by competing in friendly games of pool. However, as tensions mount regarding the feasibility of achieving anti-gravity, Bloom opts to prove the success of the device by staging a public challenge on a billiards table.  Specifically, he dares Priss to shoot a ball toward the center of a billiards table, where it will enter a zero-gravity field, thereby eliminating mass.  Priss takes the shot, sending the ball caroming into the field. But when the ball enters the device’s field, the ball vanishes and Bloom instantly collapses dead with a mysterious hole drilled through his chest, begging the question: Did Priss intentionally murder Bloom?

So what does any of this have to do with movies?

As it happens, in 2013, Chelzea Hendrus and Tyler Johnson, two students at the University of Akron, created a 7-minute claymation adaptation of “The Billiard Ball” for their Extreme Physics (Physics Theatre) class.  The film, aptly titled The Billiard Ball, is available to watch here.

The characters’ names are changed (e.g., Professor Priss becomes Professor Higgs) and the film interweaves a lot of physics mumbo-jumbo not covered in the original story, but otherwise it’s an abridged version of the same famous Asimov tale, right down to the fatal, head-scratching carom shot. And the use of Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467 Andante” gives the film an appropriately foreboding feeling, even for watching two clay figures interact.

Lemon Tree Billiards HouseNow, does this signal a cultural shift for pool? A billiards literature renaissance? Will Leo Tolstoy’s “Recollections of a Billiard Maker” (1855) make it to the silver screen, just as his 864-page opus Anna Karenina did in 1987?  Given The Billiard Ball only has 310 views, probably not.

But, the notion of sourcing future billiards movies from literature is not as far-fetched as it may sound.  After all, the two most famous billiards movies – The Hustler and The Color of Money – were both adapted from novels written by Walter Tevis, as was the short billiards film The Lemon Tree Billiards House, which was based on a shorty story by Cedric Yamanaka. So, if Hollywood is looking to procure new material, there is a catalog of classic billiards stories awaiting perusal.

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A special thanks to my colleague René G., who first turned me on to Asimov’s story, as well as many of the other great works referenced in this blog post.

Up Against the 8 Ball

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Up Against the 8 Ball Up Against the 8 Ball, the 2004 billiards comedy directed by Troy Curvey Jr on a shoestring budget, packs a wallop of positivity into its 90 minutes. Overcoming obstacles, pursuing higher education, helping one’s neighbor – all these uplifting themes get ample on-screen treatment. But, no amount of feel-good moralism can save this film from its slim-jim plot, insipid script, bad acting, and horrible billiards sequences.

The film begins with Krista (Iva La’Shawn) and Monique (Tawny Dahl), two women who just lost their scholarship funding their tuition at a historically black college, needing to find $10,000 to complete their final semester and graduate. After ruling out robbing a bank and stripping, the girls decide to compete in the Protect Your Stick Condoms National Pool Tournament, which has a $50,000 winner-take-all award.   This should be easy, according to Krista, who was raised shooting billiards by her father, a well-known pool hustler. (The origin of Monique’s skills are not revealed.)

The first step is to win the regional doubles tournament, where they get exposed to a rogues’ gallery of paper-thin opponents, including: Marcus (a local lothario) and his partner Fat Tony (who succeeds in making shots only by equating balls with similarly colored food – e.g., the 1-ball is corn-on-the-cob, the 6-ball is collard greens, the cue ball is mashed potatoes); two Irish priests; an ignoramus that talks about the need to “use English instead of Spanish”; and most offensive, an Asian duo accused of using their “kung fu” to win. (Interesting note: one of the Asian opponents is played by James Kyson, who years later would star as Ando on NBC’s hit show Heroes as well as get named by TV Guide as one of “Hollywood’s 25 Hottest.”)

The ladies win the tournament, which is hard to believe given the actresses are clearly uncomfortable holding cue sticks and the only shots shown on screen are incredibly simple ones. Victory clinched, the women head to Las Vegas, accompanied by their stereotypical gay friend Fruity Jackson (T. Ashanti Mozelle). Expecting they’ll be treated like royalty when they arrive, they are instead dropped off at a squalid depot, where friendly hookers roam under the watchful eye of JT (Jay Cooper), a soft-spoken “not your traditional kind of pimp.” JT quickly befriends Krista and Monique, and after confirming they are not seeking to work the streets, drives them to the Tasmahall Hotel (and not the Taj Mahal Hotel, as the ladies hoped). Once at the hotel, there is some comic relief provided by the proprietor, played by Arnez J, an emerging comic recognizable on BET.

Eventually, after a series of distracting and uninteresting scenes – a budding romance between JT and Monique; an attempt by Marcus to drug (and presumably rape) Krista; Fruity’s efforts to secure the $1,000 tournament registration fee; a schlubby mob boss trying to rig the tournament by recruiting Caroline, a well-known hustler – the tournament begins.

Up Against the *And, wow, is this some painful pool to watch. It’s as if the technical advising was done by a team of 2nd-graders. No one knows how to play. The incredulity and lack of humor hit their nadir when the final match narrows down to our collegiate ladies versus Caroline and her lesbian partner. With Caroline & Co. clearly winning, Monique resorts to baring some midriff and thigh, thereby distracting Caroline and making her partner so jealous that she forfeits in anger.

For a film that includes such virtuous (albeit vapid), dialogue as, “This is our only chance to graduate and make something of ourselves,” it’s amazing and disturbing how much of the film traffics in two-dimensional stereotypes and derogatory comments, such as referring to the final match as the “collegiate chicks [against] the lesbian hos.” Somewhere stuck between crude comedy and righteous homily sits Up Against the 8 Ball, which makes for a pretty terrible movie.

Up Against the 8 Ball is available to watch online or on DVD.

Behind the Nine

Often before I blog about a particular movie, I’ll skim whatever user reviews I can find to get a temperature read on past audience reaction. For the 2003 billiards movie Behind the Nine, the reviews were particularly virulent and condemnatory. Nolan Canova bemoaned the “f*%king lifetime it took to sit through this movie.”[1] Kris Langley decried the film was “one of the worst examples of transparent attention-whoring I’ve ever seen in my life.”[2] And Fast Larry excoriated, “It’s so stupid, so bad, it is a disgrace. Just a bunch of ding dong nincompoop morons with a nice camera.”

Behind the NineHere’s the truth: these reviews are spot-on accurate. The film really is that bad.

For a suffocating, molasses-paced, 78 minutes, Behind the Nine, directed by Martin Kelley, focuses on an underground two-week, 9-ball tournament that pays $500,000 to the winner and $500,000 to the organizer, Alex (Derek Seiling), who puts on the tournament to “make ends meet.” The tournament has 200 players, but by the time the film begins, “192 gamblers, hustlers, and hacks have hit the streets empty-handed.” The movie’s audience is subject to watching the remaining eight players compete in a single elimination, race to seven games.

Though the premise is reasonably intriguing, Behind the Nine collapses under the weight of terrible acting; a boring and distasteful script riddled with racist and homophobic language; unimaginative cinematography and direction; and – the coup de grâce – a preposterous and stultifying approach to billiards.

Let’s start with the concept of the 200-person, single elimination tournament. Mathematically, that’s impossible, as the total number of people needs to sum to a power of two (e.g., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256).

Even if there were 200 players, the math is still borderline questionable. A single-elimination tournament with 200 players equals (roughly) 198 matches (100 matches in 1st round, 50 matches in 2nd round, 25 matches in 3rd round, etc.). Since it’s a race to seven, assume the average match lasts one hour, with 15 minutes in between each match. Do the math and it adds up to 247 hours of tournament play – equivalent to 18 hours/day for the two weeks. Possible? Sure, with a full tournament staff. But, with just an organizer (Alex), a bouncer (Mouse), a bartender (Beth), and a hot girl (Wendy) whose job is to rack and make out with the female players (?!), I’m dubious.

Behind the NineMaybe I wouldn’t harp on the math if the opening lines of the movie were something other than Alex’s voice-over: “Three things I love: statistics, baseball, and pool. My dad wanted me to be an accountant, but as I said earlier, that’s for suckers.”

Speaking of statistics, the movie’s viewers are frequently shown Alex’s “files” on each player, which includes his computed odds of each person winning the tournament. But, given it’s a winner-takes-all pot, and there is no apparent side-betting, then there’s no conceivable reason to calculate a player’s likelihood to win, as it doesn’t impact any person’s financial outcome. This “love of stats” shows a blatant ignorance about its actual use.

Putting down the calculator, this tournament occurs in the basement of Alex’s house on a single, cheap-ass, red-clothed pool table. Call me cynical, but I don’t imagine there are too many players with $5000 of dispensable cash that are going to jump at the chance to play competitive pool on some twenty-something’s hobby table.

Behind the NineMore to the point, betting $5000 on a single elimination tournament is no paltry entry fee, considering a typical tournament fee might cost but one-tenth that amount. One would think the players must be pretty decent (especially if my assumptions about a race to seven lasting one hour) to risk that kind of moola. However, judging by the level of billiards shown among the eight finalists – i.e., the top 4% — these players are outright awful. Only the most basic straight-on shots are attempted, and many of these shots are missed. I don’t know what is more bat-shit crazy: the bonkers notion that any viewer would believe these borderline actors are pool players or that any viewer would wish to endure watching so many minutes of piss-poor pool.

Is there anything positive to say? Yes, Ted Huckabee, who plays the muscleman Pigman in the film was able to survive being cast in this cinematic dreck and now portrays Bruce on the mega-hit television series The Walking Dead. The rest of the Behind the Nine cast? Not so lucky.

Behind the Nine was once available to purchase on DVD, but no longer. It can be watched in its entirety online here.

[1]          http://www.crazedfanboy.com/npcr/popculturereview194.html

[2]          http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317135/reviews?ref_=tt_urv