Look, I said I’ve seen every Bruce Willis film in the theater. 

But there’s a reason for that.  He’s got truly catholic taste.  Sometimes they include the despicable Moonrise Kingdom, or a Hostage/Cold Light of Dayborefest.  But sometimes they’re insane (Breakfast of Champions or Cop Out) and sometimes they’re fucking great (Die Hard, Twelve Monkeys, Pulp Fiction, Unbreakable, etc.).

The point is, it’s not just my repressed homo-erotic desire, or the idea that if I support a bald guy, girls will think bald guys are sexy.  It’s because filmgoing is random.  You can read as many reviews as you like, and mitigate risk and so on, but you just don’t know.  There’s no reason that How I Spent My Summer Vacation is the best narrative film of the year, but it is, any more than both of Mr. Joss Whedon’s films this year kind of suck.  But Mr. Willis knows: if they missed him in Twelve Monkeys, they’re just not ever going to give him an Oscar.  So he’s just going to do fucked up shit.

With someone like Mr. Willis (and to a lesser extent, Mr. Guy Pierce, who was in the actually not-boring Lockout this year), you go, I go, because he’s the acting equivalent of me: he will be in anything.

This would be a favorite example of French retitling, if anyone on earth had seen it but me.

Which leads us to Lay the Favorite (adorably retitled Lady Vegas for a continually baffled French public), which is as anything as it comes.  It is a mess?  Yes.  They introduce the love interest half way through, the villain after that, and even include a baffling ‘where are they now’ end-credit.  Ostensibly on the subject of gambling, I still have no idea what they were talking about.  But a sweet mess, with a true commitment to character by Ms. Rebecca Hall, and a scene that involves Mr. Willis taking a big bet and then getting so nervous about the outcome he wants to leave the room.  It wanted to be about faith in the unfolding of the day, and it failed, but the remnants of the intent remain.

Profits!

Losses!