Shade (film)
Encyclopedia
Shade is a 2003 neo-noir
crime
drama
starring Stuart Townsend
, Gabriel Byrne
, Thandie Newton
, Jamie Foxx
, Roger Guenveur Smith
, Melanie Griffith
and Sylvester Stallone
. The film follows a trio of grifters
who attempt to set up a legendary card sharp
nicknamed "The Dean." The film is a complex web of interwoven and branching scenes and flashbacks.
game. The game is raided by robbers who order everyone to put up their hands. The Dean reluctantly does so, revealing the card he's concealed
. Incensed, a fellow player grabs a gun and starts shooting, setting off a firefight that kills everyone in the club except the Dean and one of the mobsters. The two men point their guns at each others' heads.
In present day, Tiffany (Thandie Newton
) and Charlie (Gabriel Byrne
), two of the three small-time hustlers, run a scam involving a phony diamond ring. The pettiness of the scam (grossing $300) indicates the usual level at which they operate. Later at a Los Angeles
club, Charlie and Tiffany meet up with Larry Jennings (Jamie Foxx
) as he's taking down an underground poker game. They discuss a partnership to work a "soft game" with a potential profit of $10,000-$20,000. As Charlie and Larry talk, Tiffany is harassed at the bar by a guy trying to pick her up. Larry tentatively agrees to continue talking pending his meeting the third member of the group. In a short flashback, that third member, Vernon (Stuart Townsend
), a card mechanic, is working as a Las Vegas
blackjack
dealer. Working with a small crew, he switches out the contents of a six deck shoe and they take the casino for $40,000.
As Vernon and Charlie wait for Larry at another bar, Scarne (Bo Hopkins
), a corrupt cop, shakes them down and empties Vernon's wallet. Vernon saves the bulk of his bankroll because it's stashed in his boot. Larry arrives shortly after Scarne leaves and after a demonstration of Vernon's card-handling skills agrees to team with them. The plan is for Larry to take down large pots on Vernon's crooked deals.
In a flashback branching off from Charlie and Tiffany's discussing setting up Larry, Tiffany picks up the guy who'd bothered her earlier and takes him to a warehouse, ostensibly for a bondage
scene. After he's bound, Tiffany lets in a surgical team to harvest his kidney
for black market transplant.
Charlie and Larry head into a house for the game; Vernon is already there. Larry gets impatient with the slow action and, on his own deal, gets over $100,000 in the pot heads up with four 10s. He loses to four Jacks. Unfortunately for him, the money he bet doesn't belong to him. It belongs to a mobster named Malini (Patrick Bauchau
), who sends two of his enforcers, Marlo (Smith) and Nate (B-Real
) , to retrieve him. They take him to the house, which has been stripped bare. Everyone at the game was in on the con. The enforcers take Larry to an airport and under cover of the jet noise, kill him.
Returning to the scene from many years ago, as Charlie tells the story. Dean and the mobster agree to cut cards for the money. The mobster cuts a King and Dean cuts the Ace of spades
. The mobster goes for his gun but Dean gets to his first, shooting the mobster and splashing the Ace with his blood. The three speculate that the story is an urban legend
.
At Eve's upscale bar and restaurant, the Dean (Sylvester Stallone
) and Eve (Griffith), his former partner, reminisce. The Dean is considering retiring. Intercut with this scene, Charlie, Vernon and Tiffany talk about taking the Dean down at a game with a $250,000 buy-in and total stakes of at least $2,000,000. Following this conversation and Vernon's departure, it's revealed that Vernon and Tiffany had been lovers until Vernon left and Tiffany slept with Charlie.
The next day, Malini's enforcers track down Charlie to a restaurant and Marlo demands the return of Marini's money. Charlie agrees to pay back $100,000 but instead Nate pulls a gun and opens fire. In the ensuing firefight Nate kills the bartender and Tiffany arrives in time to kill Nate, but not Marlo, who escapes. Charlie, Vernon and Tiffany run away and prior to the game they hide out at the Magic Castle. There they encounter The Professor (Hal Holbrook
), Vernon's former mentor before Charlie lured him into a life on the grift. The Professor counsels him to be careful, noting that he's known most of the best mechanics but he's never known a retired one.
Meanwhile, Scarne, a vice squad detective, intrudes into the murder scene, where an unnamed detective has been assigned to the murders at the restaurant. The witness descriptions are of two men and a woman leaving the scene and he realizes that the three are involved.
Later that night the three arrive at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
for the game, where they discover that the host is the gangster Malini. They meet the other players, including the Dean. One by one, Vernon and the Dean bust the other players until they're heads up and they decide to play five card stud for the rest of the game. Eve arrives, and they take a break. Eve and the Dean talk privately about the difficulty he's having trying to bust Vernon. The three grifters talk amongst themselves about the trouble Vernon is having getting the Dean to bite when Vernon makes plays at him and Tiffany speculates that the cards are marked. The three grab some cards and head to another room, where Vernon discovers that the Dean is using a "juice deck," a deck marked in such a way as to be readable when one's eyes are unfocused. They return to the game prepared to use the deck against the Dean.
In the climactic final hand of the game, Vernon mucks a card and deals the hand. He deals the Dean two pair, Kings and Queens (with one King in the hole), and himself a pair of Jacks with a 7 in the hole for the Dean to see. The Dean goes all in, leaving Vernon $50,000 short. Charlie and Tiffany make up the shortfall and Vernon calls the bet. Before the cards are turned up, Scarne arrives at the hotel and Marlo enters the room. Identifying the three as the team who took off Larry, Malini's muscle pull their guns and Tiffany pulls hers, then Scarne enters with his gun drawn. The Dean insists that the hand be completed and Vernon swaps out his hole card 7 for a third Jack, which would beat the two pair he'd dealt the Dean. The room is stunned when the Dean turns up a third Queen to take the hand and a $2,000,000 pot. Malini, dismissing Larry as an "idiot," tells the three they can leave but advises them to stay out of the Los Angeles rackets. Scarne departs. The Dean and Eve leave with his winnings, but not before the Dean offers Vernon a last piece of advice: "Always re-check your hole cards. Hell, I was mucking cards before you were born."
Charlie splits up the partnership with Vernon and (with Marlo's revelation that he was tipped off by Tiffany about their shaking down Larry) also with Tiffany.
Vernon is sitting alone in a diner. The Dean, Eve and Scarne enter. The game with The Dean was all an elaborate set up by the four of them to take off Charlie and Tiffany. They split the take and part, the Dean and Eve leaving together. The Dean pauses to flip the blood-stained Ace of spades to Vernon.
.
.
Shade was open for only five weeks in six theaters, and it grossed $459,098 in worldwide ticket sales. It is available on DVD from Warner Home Video
.
The movie was produced by RKO Pictures
in 2003 and released in the USA on 21 June 2003 at the CineVegas International Film Festival. It began its limited release theatrical run on 7 May 2004.
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
starring Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend is an Irish actor and director. His most notable portrayals are of the characters Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 film adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, and Dorian Gray in the 2003 film adaptation of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.-Early life and...
, Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
, Thandie Newton
Thandie Newton
Thandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W....
, Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
, Roger Guenveur Smith
Roger Guenveur Smith
Roger Guenveur Smith is an American actor, director, and writer.-Early life:Smith was born in Berkeley, California, the son of Helen Guenveur, a dentist, and Sherman Smith, a judge...
, Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
and Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
. The film follows a trio of grifters
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
who attempt to set up a legendary card sharp
Card sharp
A card sharp is a person who uses skill and deception to win at poker or other card games...
nicknamed "The Dean." The film is a complex web of interwoven and branching scenes and flashbacks.
Plot
Many years ago, a young Dean is playing in a mob-run illegal underground pokerPoker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
game. The game is raided by robbers who order everyone to put up their hands. The Dean reluctantly does so, revealing the card he's concealed
Muck (gambling)
Muck in gambling has multiple meanings. In poker, it most often refers to the pile of discarded cards into which players may throw their folded hands, and into which the dealer may place burned cards. It may also refer to the action of throwing a hand into the muck...
. Incensed, a fellow player grabs a gun and starts shooting, setting off a firefight that kills everyone in the club except the Dean and one of the mobsters. The two men point their guns at each others' heads.
In present day, Tiffany (Thandie Newton
Thandie Newton
Thandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W....
) and Charlie (Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
), two of the three small-time hustlers, run a scam involving a phony diamond ring. The pettiness of the scam (grossing $300) indicates the usual level at which they operate. Later at a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
club, Charlie and Tiffany meet up with Larry Jennings (Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
) as he's taking down an underground poker game. They discuss a partnership to work a "soft game" with a potential profit of $10,000-$20,000. As Charlie and Larry talk, Tiffany is harassed at the bar by a guy trying to pick her up. Larry tentatively agrees to continue talking pending his meeting the third member of the group. In a short flashback, that third member, Vernon (Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend is an Irish actor and director. His most notable portrayals are of the characters Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 film adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, and Dorian Gray in the 2003 film adaptation of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.-Early life and...
), a card mechanic, is working as a Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
dealer. Working with a small crew, he switches out the contents of a six deck shoe and they take the casino for $40,000.
As Vernon and Charlie wait for Larry at another bar, Scarne (Bo Hopkins
Bo Hopkins
Bo Hopkins is an American actor.-Career:Hopkins has appeared in more than one hundred film and television roles in a career of more than forty years, including The Bridge at Remagen, The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, American Graffiti, White Lightning, Radioland Murders, The Killer Elite, Midnight...
), a corrupt cop, shakes them down and empties Vernon's wallet. Vernon saves the bulk of his bankroll because it's stashed in his boot. Larry arrives shortly after Scarne leaves and after a demonstration of Vernon's card-handling skills agrees to team with them. The plan is for Larry to take down large pots on Vernon's crooked deals.
In a flashback branching off from Charlie and Tiffany's discussing setting up Larry, Tiffany picks up the guy who'd bothered her earlier and takes him to a warehouse, ostensibly for a bondage
Bondage (BDSM)
Bondage is the use of restraints for the sexual pleasure of the parties involved. It may be used in its own right, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage, or as part of sexual activity or BDSM activity.- Private bondage :...
scene. After he's bound, Tiffany lets in a surgical team to harvest his kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
for black market transplant.
Charlie and Larry head into a house for the game; Vernon is already there. Larry gets impatient with the slow action and, on his own deal, gets over $100,000 in the pot heads up with four 10s. He loses to four Jacks. Unfortunately for him, the money he bet doesn't belong to him. It belongs to a mobster named Malini (Patrick Bauchau
Patrick Bauchau
Patrick Nicolas Jean Sixte Ghislain Bauchau is a Belgian actor.-Early life:Bauchau was born in Brussels, the son of Mary , a Russian-born school administrator and publisher, and Henry Bauchau, a school administrator, publisher, writer, and psychoanalyst who served as an officer in the Belgian...
), who sends two of his enforcers, Marlo (Smith) and Nate (B-Real
B-Real
Louis Freese, better known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper of Cuban and Mexican heritage, and a film and TV actor...
) , to retrieve him. They take him to the house, which has been stripped bare. Everyone at the game was in on the con. The enforcers take Larry to an airport and under cover of the jet noise, kill him.
Returning to the scene from many years ago, as Charlie tells the story. Dean and the mobster agree to cut cards for the money. The mobster cuts a King and Dean cuts the Ace of spades
Ace of Spades
At least in English-speaking countries, the ace of spades is traditionally seen as the highest card in the deck of playing cards, although the actual value of the card varies from game to game...
. The mobster goes for his gun but Dean gets to his first, shooting the mobster and splashing the Ace with his blood. The three speculate that the story is an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
.
At Eve's upscale bar and restaurant, the Dean (Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
) and Eve (Griffith), his former partner, reminisce. The Dean is considering retiring. Intercut with this scene, Charlie, Vernon and Tiffany talk about taking the Dean down at a game with a $250,000 buy-in and total stakes of at least $2,000,000. Following this conversation and Vernon's departure, it's revealed that Vernon and Tiffany had been lovers until Vernon left and Tiffany slept with Charlie.
The next day, Malini's enforcers track down Charlie to a restaurant and Marlo demands the return of Marini's money. Charlie agrees to pay back $100,000 but instead Nate pulls a gun and opens fire. In the ensuing firefight Nate kills the bartender and Tiffany arrives in time to kill Nate, but not Marlo, who escapes. Charlie, Vernon and Tiffany run away and prior to the game they hide out at the Magic Castle. There they encounter The Professor (Hal Holbrook
Hal Holbrook
Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. is an American actor. His television roles include Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 TV series Lincoln, Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator and Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo. He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild, for which he was nominated for...
), Vernon's former mentor before Charlie lured him into a life on the grift. The Professor counsels him to be careful, noting that he's known most of the best mechanics but he's never known a retired one.
Meanwhile, Scarne, a vice squad detective, intrudes into the murder scene, where an unnamed detective has been assigned to the murders at the restaurant. The witness descriptions are of two men and a woman leaving the scene and he realizes that the three are involved.
Later that night the three arrive at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is a historic Spanish-style hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Named after Theodore Roosevelt and financed by a group including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B. Mayer, it first opened its doors on May 15, 1927...
for the game, where they discover that the host is the gangster Malini. They meet the other players, including the Dean. One by one, Vernon and the Dean bust the other players until they're heads up and they decide to play five card stud for the rest of the game. Eve arrives, and they take a break. Eve and the Dean talk privately about the difficulty he's having trying to bust Vernon. The three grifters talk amongst themselves about the trouble Vernon is having getting the Dean to bite when Vernon makes plays at him and Tiffany speculates that the cards are marked. The three grab some cards and head to another room, where Vernon discovers that the Dean is using a "juice deck," a deck marked in such a way as to be readable when one's eyes are unfocused. They return to the game prepared to use the deck against the Dean.
In the climactic final hand of the game, Vernon mucks a card and deals the hand. He deals the Dean two pair, Kings and Queens (with one King in the hole), and himself a pair of Jacks with a 7 in the hole for the Dean to see. The Dean goes all in, leaving Vernon $50,000 short. Charlie and Tiffany make up the shortfall and Vernon calls the bet. Before the cards are turned up, Scarne arrives at the hotel and Marlo enters the room. Identifying the three as the team who took off Larry, Malini's muscle pull their guns and Tiffany pulls hers, then Scarne enters with his gun drawn. The Dean insists that the hand be completed and Vernon swaps out his hole card 7 for a third Jack, which would beat the two pair he'd dealt the Dean. The room is stunned when the Dean turns up a third Queen to take the hand and a $2,000,000 pot. Malini, dismissing Larry as an "idiot," tells the three they can leave but advises them to stay out of the Los Angeles rackets. Scarne departs. The Dean and Eve leave with his winnings, but not before the Dean offers Vernon a last piece of advice: "Always re-check your hole cards. Hell, I was mucking cards before you were born."
Charlie splits up the partnership with Vernon and (with Marlo's revelation that he was tipped off by Tiffany about their shaking down Larry) also with Tiffany.
Vernon is sitting alone in a diner. The Dean, Eve and Scarne enter. The game with The Dean was all an elaborate set up by the four of them to take off Charlie and Tiffany. They split the take and part, the Dean and Eve leaving together. The Dean pauses to flip the blood-stained Ace of spades to Vernon.
Soundtrack
Shade's soundtrack features 3 original works, "Penumbra," "Moon Rocks" and "Red Reflections" composed and recorded by jazz composer and flugelhornist Dmitri MathenyDmitri Matheny
Dmitri Matheny is an American jazz flugelhornist, composer, educator, producer and recording artist. Matheny, as a performer, is known for his lyrical style and warm tone.-Early career:...
.
Critical reception
As a group, USA movie critics gave the movie good reviews. The film currently holds a 71% "fresh" rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Shade was open for only five weeks in six theaters, and it grossed $459,098 in worldwide ticket sales. It is available on DVD from Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
.
The movie was produced by RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
in 2003 and released in the USA on 21 June 2003 at the CineVegas International Film Festival. It began its limited release theatrical run on 7 May 2004.