Maverick is a film based on the popular TV shows about Bret Maverick, a professional poker player who wanders through the Old West. It has a winking, cheeky, deliberately cheesy tone that unabashedly embraces the corny, kitschy elements of the two TV series that gave it inspiration. Mel Gibson takes the titular role. His love interest and fellow hustler, Annabelle Bradford, is played by Jodie Foster. Other players include Danny Glover as a bank robber and Alfred Molina as the villain.
The film starts with a tied-up Maverick seated on a horse with a noose around his neck. If the horse bolts, Maverick dies. Of course, to ensure that the horse bolts, a snake has been placed near its feet. Then the movie suddenly flashes to a week earlier, with Maverick first arriving in town to compete in a poker championship.
Within the next few minutes, he gets to show his poker skills, his ability to twist words, his quick draw, and his ability to charm women. What with all these multiple talents, one might think that Maverick is one of those tiresome, perfect heroes who are good at everything. Well, it is a little more complicated than that. Maverick is also a goof who doesn’t take himself too seriously, and is not afraid to look stupid and cowardly if it were to suit his plans. Furthermore, he is not completely immune to being hustled himself—he is often lied to, cheated, and stolen from by his “friends.”
Jodie Foster makes a great leading lady here. She looks lovely in a peacock-blue dress when we first meet her character. Her chemistry with Gibson is quite good. These days, we have been trained to expect love at first sight between two romantic leads as a necessity, even though the actors do not portray it believably. Thankfully, here, no such suspension of disbelief is necessary. However, seeing her give so much delight to the audience (while apparently having so much fun herself) makes it almost painful to think of the drab, heavy parts she has chosen for herself in recent years.
If you insist that your movies be intellectual and/or socially conscious, this is not the night-in choice for you. Maverick is a light, fun movie. However, it is also proof that just because a movie is not “serious” does not make it stupid or a waste of time. It may not be Citizen Kane, but the tonal elements are perfectly mixed, as is the chemistry between the actors. The point of the movie is to give the audience pleasure, and that is a worthy goal.
Will poker fans like this movie? Most likely, even if the frequent fight scenes and comedy set pieces do sometimes threaten to make the viewer forget about the big championship altogether. Still, the movie does imply something interesting about poker players: since poker requires so many diverse skills, it should not be too much of a stretch to see that a good poker player would be a skilled gunfighter and be able to charm Jodie Foster as well.