October 17, 1986 | The casting is dead solid perfect. Paul Newman, the gracefully aging veteran, returns to his fighting trim to reprise his role as Fast Eddie Felson, the would-be pool shark he first played 25 years ago in The Hustler. Tom Cruise, the attractively energetic newcomer, flashes a multi-kilowatt grin and sets his jaw with fierce determination as Vincent Lauria, a flashy young pool room whiz who catches Eddie’s eye.
In The Color of Money, director Martin Scorsese’s hugely entertaining sequel to The Hustler, the two stars generate a very potent chemistry, in roles that provocatively mirror their off-screen lives. Newman, the boyish old pro who has cut back considerably on his movie work, plays Eddie as a self- styled gray eminence, a shady Chicago liquor salesman who hasn’t picked up a pool cue in years. Cruise, the intense neophyte with the recent hits Top Gun and Risky Business to his credit, plays Vincent as a fresh-faced, unspoiled novice who’s gaining the experience he needs to discipline his raw talent.
Eddie has a lot to teach Vincent, and Vincent has a lot to learn. In the end, though, both men recognize they are battling for the same position in the spotlight. It’s not an original plot, to be sure, but Newman and Cruise make The Color of Money seem fresh and newly minted.
Loosely based on a novel by Walter Tevis, the same author who wrote The Hustler, The Color of Money begins as Eddie is suitably impressed by Vincent’s pool table prowess. (“The kid’s got a sledgehammer break!” he marvels.) Trouble is, Vincent is something of a flake: He’s not interested in hustling big money, and not devious enough to hide his skills from unwary opponents. Vincent is a trusting soul — too trusting, judging from the way he’s easily led by Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), his beautiful but hard-edged girlfriend. It doesn’t take Eddie long to gain Vincent’s confidence — and to enlist Carmen as his very eager accomplice.
Eddie agrees to be Vincent’s “stakehorse,” bankrolling the younger man’s education as Vincent prepares for the 9-Ball Classic in Atlantic City. For a while, Eddie and Carmen act like surrogate parents, bestowing or withholding approval to motivate Vincent as they tour various low-rent pool halls. Vincent enjoys receiving so much attention, and does his best to learn the inside moves of a sharp-eyed hustler.
But Eddie loses his meticulous control as he gets the itch to pick up his pool cue again. And when he’s taken by a small-time hustler, Eddie hits rock bottom with alarming speed.
It’s at this point that a curious thing happens to The Color of Money: The film, which starts out as a familiar but absorbing tale about the corruption of innocence, suddenly becomes an equally interesting but less compelling story about personal redemption.
Vincent simply vanishes for a long stretch of running time, while Eddie makes the rounds of Midwestern pool halls, jumpstarting his enthusiasm and reviving his confidence. All it takes is a few good games (and, not incidentally, a new pair of glasses) to assure Eddie he’s ready for a major comeback at — where else? — the 9-Ball Classic in Atlantic City.
By the time we catch up with Vincent, he’s more brazen, more cynical — and much more likely to snap at Carmen. It’s only a matter of time, of course, before the aging crown prince meets the pretender to the throne on a battlefield of green felt. And yet, even though the final match-up has an undeniable emotional impact, and a tartly ironic twist, there’s something missing. Vincent’s metamorphosis is announced rather than dramatized, and the audience cannot help feeling slightly cheated.
Still, The Color of Money has been made with enough skill, and is acted with enough conviction, to compensate for its shortcomings. Scorsese, the poet laureate of urban outsiders, vividly evokes the romanticized sleaziness of good hardboiled fiction, and scriptwriter Richard Price provides terse, cocksure dialogue that often has the ring of street-smart poetry. (“Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”) Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is the perfect mixture of fire and ice as Carmen, while Helen Shaver makes an affecting impression as Janelle, Eddie’s loyal girlfriend.
The roving camera of cinematographer Michael Ballhaus relentlessly stalks the characters, pouncing only when they are least prepared and most vulnerable. The musical score supervised by Robbie Robertson (formerly with The Band) is a coldly effective fusion of rock, jazz and surly blues.
Newman, sporting a neatly trimmed mustache and a tattered remnant of dignity, infuses Eddie with a slow-burning craftiness that fires his snappy patter with a seductive zeal. He gives a vigorous, full-bodied performance that ranks with his very best film work, ranging from authoritative outrage to agonized self-loathing without ever sounding a false note.
Cruise evidences his own versatility as Vincent, somehow retaining his boyish high spirits as he moves from naive firebrand to manipulative sharpie. He is especially adept in the early scenes, as he credibly conveys the sort of affection-starved ingenuousness that makes someone like Vincent an easy mark for the Carmens and Fast Eddies of the world.
There’s an inspired scene midway through The Color of Money where Vincent reflexively embraces his mentor. Eddie is taken aback momentarily by the open display of emotion. But he quickly recovers, and fakes what he thinks should be a proper response to Vincent’s gesture of friendship. Carmen looks on impassively, missing nothing. With the self-assured economy of a classical film artist, Scorsese tells you everything you need to know about these people at that precise moment in time, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of insight. His confident, no-nonsense approach to storytelling gives The Color of Money a bracing momentum, so that the film propels relentlessly, inexorably, like a breaking ball speeding toward the corner pocket.
