this was an ESPN tv series that was surprisingly good. It fulfilled all of my stereotypes of the Vegas scene.
I wish it would have gone a little deeper into poker, but it was mostly character driven. I do not believe there was a season 2.
August 26, 2007SUPER PRICE ON A GREAT DVD I WILL BUY AGAIN GREAT SERVICE
April 6, 2007The premise for this series is ridiclous. The first character wants revenege on "The Matador", because he beat her when she was twelve, thus robbing her of the bail money to get her Dad out of jail, who died as a result. That might not be spot on but its that level of stupidty. The two other main characters have just as dumb of a reason for revenge. Furthermore, all three are willing to risk their lives to beat the matador. Not only is it merely money, but it wouldn't prove much if they did win. Poker does have a good deal of luck in it. Also, pros lose large sums of money quite reguarely, the manador would just win it back from them or someone else. The manador also cheats to win, which is ridiclous. If he was "the man", he wouldn't need to cheat. Finally, the writing is horrible. The Great lines Matt Damon uses in Rounders are nowhere in this series. Oh they try, but fail miserably. This series is over the top and barely entertaining.
January 23, 2007 |  | Entertaining despite the large number of technical flaws |  |
If you are a poker tragic like myself, you will spend a lot of your watching time picking apart the technical flaws that are readily apparent in this series. The series opens with some abysmal trash talking and cheesy dialogue. For an example of what genuine, entertaining trash talk is like, pick up any poker DVD with Mike Matusow at the table. The acting begins horribly but gradually improves perhaps as the actors begin to warm to their roles. In the beginning when our young poker hot shot threatens the team leader with "Heads up old man I'll take whatever you have on you" I almost burst out laughing. As the series progresses these moments of unintentional levity become gradually less frequent.
A lot of the poker aspects of the series are unrealistic. The poker room manager is shown belittling the client and there is a scene depicting an underground card game where participants draw pistols on each other in the middle of a hand. Although this may have happened in the "old school" Las Vegas, these scenes would never occur in modern Vegas where the series is set. There are also other highly implausible narrative devices that I won't reveal in my review for fear of spoiling the plot. The game of poker in and of itself provides plenty of drama and I think that the script writers relied far too much on cheating and violence to inject spice into the series.
Having said all that the series is surprisingly watchable. It definitely improves toward the end and although the technical flaws are distracting, it does not detract too much from the overall enjoyability of the series. Although not in the same echelon as "Rounders", "Tilt" is a reasonable poker series that will be enjoyed by anyone who likes watching the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker on TV.
January 8, 2007 Hard to believe ESPN could come up with programming this original but they came through with flying colors with Tilt. With the current poker craze everywhere you look I didn't think a show like this could hold my interest for more than a few episodes - once again I was wrong. The storylines were complimented nicely with a cast of virtual unknowns making this one of the better series I have seen on ESPN - my only complaint is that it did not come back for a second season.
September 3, 2006More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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