Lay the Favorite (2012)

Lay the Favorite Movie

Taglines: How far can a losing shot take you?

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is be­com­ing bored with her life in Florida, doing stripteases and lap dances for pri­vate cus­tomers. Her dad, Jerry, tells her to fol­low her dream of mov­ing to Las Vegas, where she seeks hon­est work as a cock­tail wait­ress.

A young woman named Holly, who lives at the same Vegas motel, arranges for Beth to meet Dink Heimowitz, a pro­fes­sional gam­bler who fol­lows the fast-chang­ing odds on sport­ing events and em­ploys as­sis­tants at Dink, Inc., to lay big-money bets for him. Beth is in­trigued and it turns out she has a good mind for num­bers, eas­ily grasp­ing Dink’s sys­tem and be­com­ing his protégée and he views her as his lucky charm. When Beth be­gins ex­press­ing a more per­sonal in­ter­est in her much-older men­tor, Dink’s sharp-tongued wife, Tulip, lets it be known in no un­cer­tain terms that she wants Beth out of her hus­band’s life. As a re­sult from pres­sure from his wife, Dink lets Beth go.

A young jour­nal­ist from New York, Je­remy, meets Beth in the casino and they im­me­di­ately hit it off and she makes plans to move back to New York with him, hav­ing noth­ing left in Las Vegas to keep her there. She is hooked on the ex­cite­ment and in­come that gam­bling pro­vides and backs out sud­denly when­ever Dink, fac­ing a heavy los­ing streak with­out his lucky charm, asks her to come back to work for him.

Lay the Favorite Movie

When­ever Dink’s los­ing streak con­tin­ues even with Beth’s re­turn, he has a melt­down and fires every­one in his of­fice. Hav­ing enough, Beth goes to New York to be with Je­remy but ac­cepts a sim­i­lar job for a rival bookie called Rosie. Gam­bling is il­le­gal in New York and Dink wor­ries about Beth. Rosie then sets up a legal op­er­a­tion based in Curaçao and Beth goes down to help run the bet­ting. Rosie and his men are more in­ter­ested in drugs and hook­ers and Beth wants out. A New York gam­bler, Dave Green­berg, is in debt for sixty-thou­sand dol­lars and may be work­ing for the Feds.

Lay the Favorite (promoted as Lay the Favourite in the UK) is a 2012 American comedy-drama film starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joshua Jackson. Based on Beth Raymer’s memoir of the same title, the film follows a young, free-spirited woman as she journeys through the legal and illegal world of sports gambling. The film was directed by Stephen Frears.

Lay the Favorite Movie Poster

Lay the Favorite (2012)

Directed by: Stephen Frears
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn, Joel Murray, Hugo Armstrong, Corbin Bernsen, Laura Prepon, Rio Hackford, Thom Sesma, Adam Kozlowski, Rusty Meyers, Frank Grillo
Screenplay by: D.V. DeVincentis
Production Design by: Dan Davis
Cinematography by: Michael McDonough
Film Editing by: Mick Audsley
Costume Design by: Christopher Peterson
Set Decoration by: Michelle Schluter-Ford
Art Direction by: Erik Polczwartek
Music by: James Seymour Brett
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, some sexual content, brief drug use, and nudity.
Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
Release Date: December 7, 2012

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