Promoted as a Jeff Probst film, Finder’s Fee has gained popularity, if you can call it that, due to the popularity of “Survivor” host, Jeff Probst’s directorial and writing debut.
But I can’t discount this movie entirely, it does have a little bit of an edge to it but that edge is lost in the fact that the story becomes way too over dramatic. The cast seems to act as if every little event may be their last and if this or that doesn’t happen their whole world may come crashing down.
The story is somewhat intriguing as Tepper (Palladino) finds a wallet in the street and has a brief moment of goodness and attempts to contact the owner in order to return it. After making the call, he discovers that the lottery ticket inside is a $6 million winner.
This is a big deal, right? Well, it is even more of a big deal once we learn that his friends are on their way over for their weekly poker game, and the group tradition is to bet their lottery tickets instead of money.
Uh oh! what to do? Hide the ticket completely and go about the game as always with the lottery ticket you actually bought? Hell, no! Let’s act erratic and obvious when the owner of the wallet shows up and is forced to join the game due to the building being placed on lockdown by the police looking for a criminal on the run.
Yeah, farfetched right? Despite that fact it is relatively entertaining. Not to the point where I can recommend you buy it but enough to where if you have a couple of hours to kill, this could kill those hours and you won’t want to kill yourself afterwards.
Now this pic has one a couple of awards including top prize at the Seattle Film Festival, and many say it is due to the fact that it needs recognition while others in the contest already have that recognition, which makes no sense to me. If we are to give awards to films just so they can look better means the whole ordeal is a sham and should be discarded (wouldn’t hurt).
Finder’s Fee does not deserve any awards, but the fact that it has gotten together some known actors starting with James Earl Jones down to Matthew Lillard (Scream, Scooby-Doo), Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder, The In-Laws), Robert Forster (Confidence, Mullholland Dr.), and Erik Palladino (ER, U-571) does deserve some recognition, but ultimately this flick is taking advantage of the popularity of Jeff Probst and Survivor, which Jeff even admits in a small interview on the DVD.
So how about the DVD extras? Well not a lot here, there is some Director’s Commentary, some deleted scenes and bloopers, along with production commentaries and award information, nothing to write home about.
Altogether this isn’t the greatest of flicks, but it is far from the worst. Check your video rental store and check it out, you never know you may like it a little more than I did.
