Beth (Rebecca Hall),having drifted into private dancing (home visits leading to small scale prostitution) decides to leave small-town Florida and head for Las Vegas, where a more fulfilling life as a cocktail waitress beckons. Alas, cocktail waitressing in Vegas is a difficult nut to crack, and beth ends up working for Dink (Bruce Wilis) who makes his living from his sports gambling company. What follows is the story of Beth's progress, and her involvement with Dink, his wife Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones),journalist Jeremy (Joshua Jackson),bookmaker Rosie (Vince Vaughan) and gambler Dave (John Carroll Lynch).

The need to classify films is sometimes a problem, and this is the case here. The closing titles tell us that Beth married Jeremy, took a degree and became a writer: the film is based on her personal memoir and, like real life, is episodic and unstructured. So, while it is often amusing, it is not a comedy, while it is sometimes dramatic it is not a drama and, in fact, it isn't really a story at all, it is simply a recollection of a period in her life.

My main criticism is that as someone who is not a sports fan and doesn't bet, big chunks of this movie were as opaque to me as a movie with big chunks set on the floor of a stock exchange would have been. I understand that this is inevitable, but it was something of a problem.

And this is a shame, because the film otherwise kept me occupied in a very agreeable manner. Rebecca Hall is a delight. Having played serious characters previously, with a tendency towards the plain, Beth is a sunny, engaging, leggy, sexy pleasure, but all the characters are quite nice people (which, frankly, I find unlikely, but that didn't matter: I enjoyed the film anyway. And it was a pleasure to see Vince Vaughan playing a different character.

If I hadn't seen Rebecca Hall in any other movie I guess I wouldn't have been amazed by the transformation or her performance in general in this movie. You really buy her ... let's call it naive nature, she puts on display here. Bruce Willis is pretty passive, which works in a way, but not throughout. Joshua and Catherine are not used in the best way possible, but the main focus is on Rebecca so that can be forgiven.

Story-wise, there is not that much exciting or new happening, the jokes are not always working, but the movie has a low budget charm to it (if you can accept that and not look at it as a star vehicle movie with a big budget). It's a nice little movie, that has more potential than it shows on screen.

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is stripping in private homes to make ends meet. On the advise of motel neighbor Holly (Laura Prepon),she goes to work for bookie Dink (Bruce Willis) and finds that she's actually quite good at it. She's good with numbers. People like dealing with her on the phone. And Dink likes her a lot. The problem is Dink's wife Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones) doesn't want him to like her so much. When Dink starts to lose money, things blow up.

When you consider the talents in front of and behind the camera, it's a wonder how things could go so wrong. Award winning director Stephen Frears is the biggest culprit. The script may need better jokes, but it's mainly Frears who couldn't extract any laughs from this. In the end, this is mostly his responsibility.

Rebecca Hall is doing a squeaky-voice fast-talking bobble head doll. It's completely fake, and leaves my head shaking. It doesn't fit her at all. If her mannerisms are meant to be funny, it got no laughs from me. Everybody else is doing a competent if not very impressive work. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bruce Willis could have been an explosive couple but they're not. The only interesting acting comes from Vince Vaughn who plays a wildman bookie.

Not much goes right in this movie. It is absolutely not funny. It is watchable, but afterward I wonder why I watched it.