Uncut Gems (2019)
Hey there! Welcome back to a blog! There aren’t too many times a film comes out and I watch the trailer and I’m thinking hell yes! I cannot wait to see this. Then when it comes out, I immediately watch it. Usually it gets lost on my endless list of movies I need to see and I watch it when it’s streaming on Prime or something. But Netflix picked up Uncut Gems and I was reminded I needed to watch it so I did just that!
Uncut Gems, if you’ve been living under a rock (see what I did there….), is a movie with Adam Sandler where he was all but going to get an Oscar nod and then got snubbed and I wasn’t sure what to believe until I saw the film. He was great. Maybe even GREAT. This movie was ridiculous. Like a 2 hour and 13 minute adrenaline pump straight into your veins. The movie starts fast and doesn’t slow down until the ridiculously crazy ending.
So Sandler, Howard “Howie” Ratner, is a gems dealer who somehow got addicted to Kyle’s Money Shot and is a huge gambler! Except he’s somehow not very good at gambling and gets some fairly large debts on some people that he shouldn’t have debts with. Like the type of people who will fuck you and your family up if you don’t pay them the hundreds of thousands you owe them.
So Howie finally thinks he hits it big when he finds a gem from Ethiopia worth over a million dollars and he gets it into the country for the slim price of $100k. Only downside is the gem isn’t worth a million. It is worth about 10% of that, you know, the $100k he paid for it. BUT, there is some good news. Somehow, Kevin Garnett (playing himself in the film), thinks that the gem has mysterious powers and is helping him in the 2012 NBA Finals. KG wants to buy the gem but Sandler has already sent it to auction and there’s a missing finals ring in the middle of all of this as Howard just pawns one debt off to cover another while betting it all. It’s a thrill ride.
Sandler thinks he hits it big earlier in the film but then finds out that one of the bookies he owed money to cancelled the bet that he won so he didn’t win it and he still didn’t have money? Then there’s The Weeknd who is somehow involved and tries to fuck Sandler’s side piece, who he loves and has a weird apartment for and she gets a tattoo of his name on her ass and is so in love with “Howie” that it’s ridiculous. THEN there’s his wife who hates his guts because she knows he’s a piece of shit but she’s sticking it out for the kids, I think (?), and Sandler really cares about her (and the kids) but is so f’ed up in the head that he can’t get his life back on track and he knows it.
So we’re building to the climax of the film the entire time and Sandler is just the most unlucky guy in the entire world, losing everything by the equivalent of a pointless half court shot that screws up the spread. He’s so close but the result always puts him further behind. Well, he finally decides to sell the gem to KG to get enough money to pay off some of his debt and turn his life around, but instead, he pulls a heist out of his ass and tosses money outside through some windows and places a parlay for $165,000 to win over $1M – you know, the original price of that gem. He bets on KG and bets on the Celtics to win the finals and this sets up the finale. It’s the entire game through the stressed and ridiculous eyes of several characters in the film. He parlays the opening tip (for the 2nd time) which is such a ballsy move and then the rest of the game proceeds to happen.
It’s a crazy, stressful, triumphant sequence that is unmatched in any other film. Then the end happens. I know I say spoilers occur here but I’m not putting this one. I’m just saying if you haven’t watched the movie, get on Netflix and dedicate 2 hours and 13 minutes of your time and don’t do it before bed because you might not go to sleep. Great movie. Great acting. You know what, Sandman, you get an Oscar nod from me! Or a Grammy or whatever. You get a Lukey! That’s it! The Lukey Awards. Coming soon! Can’t Wait!
Overall Rating: 7.5/10