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High Stakes

1989, Movie, R, 102 mins

High Stakes: Review

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HIGH STAKES is built on three well-worn plot devices: the whore with a heart of gold; Scrooge sees the light; and boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Oddly enough, writer-producer-director Amos Kollek makes the combination work reasonably well. Bambi Rose (Sally Kirkland) is a sexy, albeit aging, New York prostitute who is at the mercy of Slim (Richard Lynch), a vicious racketeer pimp. John Stratton (Robert LuPone) is the unprincipled Wall Street financier whose fortunes become intertwined with Bambi's when a mugging leaves him at her doorstep. Together, John and Bambi have more than their share of thrills after Bambi steals $4,000 from one of Slim's henchmen. Kirkland's portrayal of a woman who can hot-wire cars but can't resist exploitative men is touching and believable, LuPone acquits himself well as the profit-hungry heavy hitter who discovers there is more to life than outwitting the ticker tape, and Lynch is intriguingly vicious portraying a character that owes much to Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET. If you can accept some small lapses in credibility, this is not a bad film, particularly if you're a fan of the kind of sentimental plot turns one finds in films like STELLA DALLAS. leave a comment
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The Race for the Triple Crown: Horses, High Stakes and Eternal Hope
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High Stakes: How I Blew 14 Million
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