“Poolhall Junkies is a porno movie for billiards fiends.”
Alas, I can’t take credit for authoring that beautiful sentiment (it belongs to the staff writer Purple for Movie Magazine), but it’s a zinger of truth. From the opening scene, as the camera methodically, seductively explores the baize of the billiards table, the interior of the pocket, the smoothness of the rail cushion, the length of the cue, and even the symmetry of the rack, one feels they’ve entered a world of pool fetishism. It’s no wonder that this is the mise-en-scene of the 2003 billiards movie Poolhall Junkies and the home of its star, Johnny “Sidepocket Kid” Doyle, a pool player so good that “the cue was part of his arms, the balls had eyes, and the thing that made him so good was that he thought he could never miss.”
It’s also then no surprise that Doyle is played by Mars Callahan, the movie’s director and writer, and an incredible pool player in his own right. In making the film, Callahan clearly wanted to make a billiards movie. He used his own life growing up fatherless in Los Angeles, hustling and playing pool starting at the age of 12, to form the basis of the movie, though it would take him 10 years to get it to the silver screen.
The storyline for Poolhall Junkies is pretty simple (and often criticized for being a retread of better movies such as Rounders). Johnny is a teen billiards prodigy who aspires to be a pool professional. But, his “mentor” uncle Joe (the excellent Chazz Palminteri) has bigger plans to “educate” him and turn him into a pool hustler. Fifteen years later, when Johnny breaks from his mentor, he tries to start a new life away from pool-sharking. But, Joe, hell-bent on revenge, won’t let him leave, and sics his new protégé Brad (the head-scratchingly cast Rick Schroeder) on Johnny’s friends and family, creating for Johnny a world of debt and problems that can only be resolved in a – wait for it…you guessed it – 9-ball showdown.
Okay, so the plot is beyond predictable. Can we move on now? Let’s talk about the pool! The movie is a billiards bonanza of rapid-fire strokes, rail assist jumps, table-length draws, absurd masse shots, double-bank carom shots, with some of the most eye-popping shots performed by billiards legend Robert “Cotton” LeBlanc, who not only was a technical pool advisor for the film, but also makes a cameo in the film at the Olhausen $100,000 9-ball Shootout, along with trick-shot maestro Mike Massey (as St. Louis Louis).
But, Poolhall Junkies does not just rely on professionals to dazzle. To the contrary, the movie is notable for creating an aura of authenticity through its use of continuous wide-angle pool shots, taken not just by Callahan, but also by the other players in the movie. Perhaps, the most famous shot in the movie is the frozen cue-ball carom kick shot shown below that Johnny uses to hustle his girlfriend’s boss at a party.
In Poolhall Junkies, this shot, which immediately inspired thousands of audience members to try to recreate it at their local pool halls, is done – on the first take, no less – by Johnny’s partner and bank-roller Mike (the scene-stealing Christopher Walken). The shot is then repeated by Callahan…with one hand! (For a full explanation of the physics of this shot and others in the film, check out the article from Dr. David Alciatore in his series, “Billiards on the Big Screen.”)
Billiard movie aficionados will also note Callahan’s clear homage to The Color of Money in everything from the use of pool shot montages and the selection of recognizable pop songs to power the pool scenes (e.g., “Werewolves of London” in The Color of Money; “The Payback” and “Use Me” in Poolhall Junkies) to the overt Color of Money poster in the local pool hall. More subtle tributes include the use of a deafening crack of the break to signal a one-of-a-kind pool player, as well as Johnny’s pompadour and white-on-black HUSTLER t-shirt that are reminiscent of Vince’s (Tom Cruise) bouffant hairdo and white-on-black VINCE t-shirt.
And yet, as an ode to billiards, Poolhall Junkies carries with it a negative underbelly, namely the close equation of pool with hustling. While the movie opens with the line, “I don’t want to be a hustler. I want to be a professional,” it so romanticizes the pool-shark, with its short cons, sang-froid and hyper-masculine lifestyle, that it comes dangerously close to tainting the sport in the process.
As skilled as all the pool players are in the movie, they ultimately rely on deceit and even an old-fashioned ass-stomping to succeed. Johnny lands a mobile-home sales job by tricking the company owner into making a bet he can’t win. Another character wins a fast $200 by duping two guys in a drinking game. Johnny’s brother attempts to beat Brad by only playing him on a pool-table he rigged with a crooked leg. Brad, allegedly the 13th ranked player in the US, must resort to a cheap “four balls off the table” hustle to win money in 8-ball. And, the most egregious example of all, in the final $100,000 showdown between Johnny and Brad, Johnny only wins because he cons his opponent into letting him take the otherwise “impossible” shot.
In this respect, it’s interesting to compare Poolhall Junkies to Anthony Palma’s 2012 movie 9-Ball. Both movies start with a pool prodigy who wants to pursue the professional path, but is held back by a manipulative uncle intent on exploiting their skills for financial gain. In 9-Ball, league play is the path to nirvana, and the billiards professionals are portrayed as angelic messengers to aid in that pursuit. On the contrary, in Poolhall Junkies, the professionals lie, intimidate, and even physically attack, and hustling, as evil as it may be, is the ultimate magnet and the only way to win over the girl, free the brother, and take the $100,000 pot.
Poolhall Junkies is widely available to rent or watch online or on DVD.
