9-Ball the movie review

9-Ball the movie starring Jennifer Barretta.

I had forgotten that Professional pool player, Jennifer Barretta, was involved in making a movie about pool.  I was checking out her webpage yesterday and saw the movie was available for purchase on DVD or BluRay and also available to rent on several different media outlets online.  So I rented the movie and just finished watching it.  Read on for my review of the movie.

**Spoiler Alert**  Stop reading now if you don't want me to ruin the movie for you!

So the premise of the movie is that Gail, Jennifer Baretta, is a pool hustler and wants to leave that life to become a professional pool player like her idols Allison Fisher and Jeanette Lee, who both have roles in the movie.  Gail's father, Luke, plays pool and teaches her how to play.  He also likes to run around with married women.  He is murdered, apparently leaving Gail's Uncle, Joey, to raise her.  Gail meets Jeanette Lee, who knows the owner of the pool hall, Vicky.  Jeanette tells Gail she needs to start playing on the APA League.  Joey, of course, doesn't like this because he wants to continue hustling.

The Story...7/10

The overall story of the movie was pretty good.  A young female pool player looks to become a professional.  Broken family issues drive most of the plot, but some parts not really addressed.  Not too bad, overall.

The Pool Scenes...4/10

There really weren't that many pool scenes given this was a movie about pool.  The scenes that were in there were pretty short and usually only 1 or 2 shots before the game was over.  I would have liked to have seen longer pool shooting scenes...maybe even whole games.

The Actors...6/10

The actors in the movie weren't too bad, actually.  I thought the movie was cast pretty well.  I liked Red as the bookie, Vicky as the pool hall owner, and Jeanette Lee and Allison Fisher as themselves.  It was cool they could be a part of the movie.  The acting, however, is another story.

The Acting/Dialog...3/10

The acting and dialog in this movie is pretty bad.  I thought the best acting job in the whole movie was Red.  I liked Red's role and thought he did a good job and Jennifer did pretty good considering acting isn't her day job.  The dialog at times was cheesy, predictable, and seemed forced or unnatural.  The script wasn't written very well.  Overall pretty bad.

My Movie Rating...5/10

I sort of felt like this was a big commercial for the APA League.  The story had potential, the actors were ok, just had bad scripts and bad directing, which led to poor dialog, and the movie directing and some scene selections left a lot to be desired.