Popular reviews

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★½ 15

  Just after Paul Newman taught America the essential lesson of how to lose in “The Hustler,” Steve McQueen arrived to let audiences know that winning isn’t necessarily a better outcome. 

  Norman Jewison’s “The Cincinnati Kid” is a film that revolves around luck, but which had very little of its own. Releasing just four years after the immediately acknowledged masterpiece of Robert Rossen’s “Hustler,” Jewison’s work on gambling comes out looking like an imitator that uses color to compensate for quality. 

  While “Hustler” is undoubtedly the better film, “Kid” at least deserves to be dealt in at the same table as its predecessor. It shares many gifts with the Rossen work, but lacks the crackshot editing of Dede Allen, who turned…

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  Review by Ryne Walley ★★★½

  "Gets down to what it's all about, doesn't it? Making the wrong move at the right time."

  Between The Hustler and The Cincinnati Kid, the name of the game is almost entirely the same. The sports featured are obviously dissimilar, but the parallels in narrative and theme are unmistakable, the latter clearly inspired by the drama and appeal of the former both in paperback and on screen. And while director Robert Rossen and the striking Paul Newman have greater success with their exceptional '61 classic, Norman Jewison and the always attractive Steve McQueen manage to hold their ground for a great deal of the runtime.

  Elements concerning the closing minutes of The Cincinnati Kid as well as the finer points…

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  Review by russman ★★★★ 1

  I cannot tolerate someone cheating at a jigsaw puzzle

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  Review by mandijo ★★★½ 5

  I liked this much more on second watch. 

  I love what Edward G. Robinson wrote in his autobiography about this movie, "In the film I played Lancey Howard, the reigning champ of the stud poker tables...I could hardly say I identified with Lancey; I was Lancey. That man on the screen, more than in any other picture I ever made, was Edward G. Robinson with great patches of Emanuel Goldenberg [his real name] showing through. He was all cold and discerning and unflappable on the exterior; he was ageing and full of self-doubt on the inside....Even the final session of the poker game was real...I played that game as if it were for blood. It was one of the best…

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  Review by Andy Summers ★★★

  As a huge Steve McQueen fan I'll be the first to admit that some of his films have achieved cult status that they don't really deserve. That's not to say that there isn't something overwhelmingly accomplished about nearly all of them, it's simply the fact that we struggle to differentiate between the respect and love we had for the icon and the quality of the films he left us with. The Cincinnati Kid does fall into that category, Steve's as cool as can be, but the film lacks that bit of something to make it truly memorable.
  Poker players need to be cool, and in Steve McQueen we had one of the coolest. Norman Jewison directs a quality cast that…

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  Review by realrzn ★★★★½

  As someone who has recently started getting into Steve McQueen’s films, this one is my favorite of his thus far and might be the best gambling movie I’ve ever seen (apologies to California Split & Rounders).

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  Review by James 🇺🇦 ★★★½

  The Cincinnati Kid is very much a vehicle for Steve McQueen, his charisma and effortless cool make this gambling drama indebted to his stature, in what is an otherwise unremarkable poker flick which retreads the same ground that The Hustler did, albeit on a different kind of felt table.

  If you're like me and are completely clueless when it comes to card games, you won't know what's happening as much of the narrative is focused on and the build up to, a big game of stud poker between McQueen's Kid and an ageing master, played magnificently by Edward G. Robinson in a late career highlight. This doesn't matter too much though as the tension, performances and immersive period setting is…

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  Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★★

  High stakes five card stud with bonded decks. The scenes in which the cards are handled straight out of the box are mesmerizing. Table action includes booze, smoking, counting, raising, calling, and winning or losing hand after hand until someone gets what they call "gutted" and stumbles out of the game like a dog with its tail between its legs. Since this is a card game rather than only a card game within a movie about something ese, the significance of each action seems momentous. The setting in New Orleans is grey, rainy, and rundown, with a taste of sleaze mixed in there. Steve McQueen is the Kid himself with his girlfriend Tuesday Weld and acquaintances Karl Malden as a…

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  Review by RetroHound ★★★

  I got this because of Edward G. Robinson. I handed my wife the description because I never know if she is going to want to watch something or if she won't be interested. She read through the names, Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson ("That's quite the pairing" she said) also listed were Ann-Margret and Norman Jewison. She goes, "Ah ha! I see why you wanted to watch this." "Norman Jewison?" I suggested. She didn't buy it. I guess my fondness for Ann-Margret has been found out.

  I'm not really into poker. I can't believe people watch it on TV. Poker or golf, I'll take a nap. And here I am, watching a movie where the last half hour is people…

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  Review by kingfrais ★★★★

  In meinem Freundeskreis ist es üblich, dass wir ab und zu Pokerrunden veranstalten. Das mittlerweile auch seit um die 15 Jahre. Einer der Freunde hatte The Cincinnati Kid da liegen und wir wollten mal schauen was McQueen und die hier spielenden, durchaus ebenso namhaften Akteure für Blätter spielen. Alles ist schön zurückhaltend erzählt, die Charaktere werden als fehlbar dargestellt und es bleibt eine grundlegend spannende Erzählung erhalten. Gerade das Duell Steve McQueen - Edward G. Robinson ist super!

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  Review by trolleyfreak ★★★★ 5

  *Trolley's 2017 McQueen Re-Watches #5*

  'I strongly identify with McQueen. He comes out of the tradition of Gable, Bogie, Cagney, and even me. He's a stunner..' (Edward G. Robinson talking about his Cincinnati Kid co-star)

  'The Hustler with cards' starring Steve McQueen as Paul Newman and The G-Man as Jackie Gleason... deal me in!

  Graduating from trifling Doris Day comedies (The Thrill Of It All, Send Me No Flowers) after original director Sam Peckinpah was fired for trying to pep up the material with a brief nude scene, Canadian-born director Norman Jewison here directs his first prestige picture; a well written character study with a keen eye for atmosphere and tension - set in Depression-era New Orleans - about a…

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  Review by Xebeche ★★★ 4

  This has such a special cross section of old and new school talent. I did a double take when Joan Blondell came strutting onto the climactic card room set with the same wisecracking energy from Gold Diggers of 1933 and proceeded to shake hands with Karl Malden, Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Cab Calloway, Ann-Margaret, and Rip Torn. Also tucked in here is Tuesday Weld, an excellent actress who I will sadly always remember most from that awful BBS movie A Safe Place. Great performance, bad movie. In The Cincinnati Kid, she once again brings the goods to a thankless role. In fact, that's the great tragedy of The Cincinnati Kid. Every single one of these stars deserves a better…