Born to Win

Rating:
Summary: dont buy this movie!
Review: I bought it because of Robert deniro and the low price. It wasnt worth it. The picture quality is horrible, it looks like a bad tape... the color is constantly changing and the picture is very grainy. The sound is nothing to brag about. And besides all of that, the movie sucks. Robert Deniro has a total of about 2 minutes of screen time, and he says maybe less then 10 lines. And whats even worse than that- the dvd that I bought had a picture of Deniro that wasnt even from this movie! sat away from this one, spend a little more a better movie.

Rating:
Summary: DeNiro fans should look somewhere else.
Review: I bought this movie for one reason, and that reason is that Robert Deniro was in the movie. I fell asleep after about 45 min. into the movie, which was after Robert Deniro's cameo. If your a big Robert DeNiro fan such as I then you should look into Taxi Driver, Casino, Goodfellas, Midnight Run, Guilty By Suspicion, Ronin, Analyze This, The Fan , and Ragging Bull. Deniro only has a small part in this film, and as much as I love to see Deniro's brillant acting ability this is not the movie to catch him at his best. Deniro fans should look somewhere else.

Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood film
Review: The dvd of "Born To Win" is being plugged as a DeNiro film, although he only has a small part in it. George Segal is the star and he gives a harrowing and brilliant performance as a $100 a day heroin addict. The film is funny and sad and utterly truthful; made in 1971, it forshadowed a whole generation of films about lost souls adrift in our blasted urban landscapes. In a class of its own.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful filmmaking
Review: There have been a number of "dope" films that have followed "Born To Win". None have been as searing, honest, funny, and profound as this one. The acting is superb, the writing brilliant, the direction first-rate. This is cinema at its best, powerful filmmaking. George Segals performance is as good as it gets. See it!

Rating:
Summary: A Sadly Neglected Film
Review: This little film from the early seventies stars major film star Robert De niro in a role I'm sure even he can't remember doing along with george segal who plays JJ a sucsessful hairdresser who's hooked on heroerin and runs afoul of the mob. So JJ is up to his neck in trouble when the cops use him to get the goods on a drug smuggler. Absorbing at times very well acted By segal in this somewhat twisted comedy/drama Best scene is when JJ & His friend are shooting up in a washroom in an abandon office floor JJ'S friend overdoses on what he thinks is heroin but instead it's battery acid laced inside the drug meant for JJ. A powerful scene displaying Segal at his efftictive moment in the film. A bittersweet film more regareded and appriciated today then it was first relased over twenty years ago.

Rating:
Summary: BORN TO WIN is, indeed, born to win!
Review: This movie was so boring and stupid, I turned it off after about 45 minutes. Maybe I had a poor copy, but I could barely understand what Paula Prentiss was saying -- and it wasn't because she was "under the influence!" I ran it back a few times but still couldn't make it out. From the other reviewers, it sounds like it got better but, if something doesn't grab my attention after 30 minutes, I say forget it!

Rating:
Summary: Gave it 45 minutes and turned it off!
Review: This movie was so boring and stupid, I turned it off after about 45 minutes. Maybe I had a poor copy, but I could barely understand what Paula Prentiss was saying -- and it wasn't because she was "under the influence!" I ran it back a few times but still couldn't make it out. From the other reviewers, it sounds like it got better but, if something doesn't grab my attention after 30 minutes, I say forget it!

Rating:
Summary: Gave it 45 minutes and turned it off!
Review: This movie was so boring and stupid, I turned it off after about 45 minutes. Maybe I had a poor copy, but I could barely understand what Paula Prentiss was saying -- and it wasn't because she was "under the influence!" I ran it back a few times but still couldn't make it out. From the other reviewers, it sounds like it got better but, if something doesn't grab my attention after 30 minutes, I say forget it!

Rating:
Summary: BORN TO WIN is, indeed, born to win!
Review: Today, it seems like every major studio in 1971 was distributing a film having to do with the drug "culture" (THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK for Twentieth Century Fox, CISCO PIKE for Columbia, BELIEVE IN ME for MGM, etc.) United Artists, however, jumped maybe too much on the band wagon in releasing JENNIFER ON MY MIND (also with De Niro in a bit part as a gypsy cab driver), but their other film drama involving drug abuse was BORN TO WIN. This film is a small hidden gem that has not yet received its well-deserved audience. It features what is, in my opinion, the best performance of George Segal throughout his whole career, as well as involving supporting performances from Karen Black, Jay Fletcher, Robert De Niro and others. It also featured the prime signal that this was an authoratative film on drug abuse: Marcie Jean Kurtz (who appeared in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK, BELIEVE IN ME and other films of this type).

The scenes that have remained striking and unforgettable include the one in which Segal, after having been dropped off in a neighborhood of junkies by his girlfriend, retires into a dark, musty alley of strung-out derelicts as he attempts to find his friend (Jay Fletcher); the scene on the beach with Karen Black conforting George Segal; Karen Black having to resort to lines like "Come back home to me"; the closing scene.

In analyzing this film, some film authorities may declare BORN TO WIN as an archetypal piece about drugs and how they allow characters to make the decline from temporary decadence into personal debauchery, alienating them from anyone who does not see them as an addict. Ivan Passer, who also in CUTTER'S WAY illustrated technique and theory in labeling cinema as the cultural vengeance for the socially impotent, demonstrates this element at an early juncture in his career. BORN TO WIN simply uses the component of drugs to use as an allegory for that crowd of socially impotent people, as well as various techniques at how they make pitiful attempts as silent revenge while they drive themselves to personal apocalypse in an urban jungle. This allows more privileged people to create "caste systems" for these types. This may sound terribly pretentious, but this is the only way to explain my viewpoint on this film to whoever reads this review. Also adding onto the film's sense of milieu is the graininess utilized in editing and camerawork. Without these two factors, BORN TO WIN would not have retained its gritty disctinction and probably would have drifted into "another typical picture about drug abuse".

In response to the minimal amount of negative reviews I have read about BORN TO WIN, you cannot expect a genuine message to come after a half hour of viewing time and you cannot regard it as just another drug picture before you think and ponder the film's ultimate meaning in the film's culminating moments. I admit to its sometimes deficient endeavors at portraying the comical value of the drug culture (the scene in which Segal dresses in pink robe and prances around in Time Square to avoid his pursuers and stopping in at a shop for mens' suits), but the dramatic moments of the film are pinnacle for trying to understand this "class" of people. BORN TO WIN is a remarkable film and nothing allows me to make hesitations about giving it a five star rating.