Richard Dreyfuss is very funny in "Let It Ride," though the movie itself is an amiable shambles. And it probably won't be very soon that we'll get another picture so happy-go-lucky about games of chance, if not precisely pro-gambling.
In fact this is the most cheerful gambling movie since "Guys and Dolls," so perhaps it's appropriate that "Let It Ride" opens with Stubby Kaye singing "Fugue for Tinhorns" from that famous musical.
But "Let It Ride" is also very much a fantasy, and couldn't be more so if the payoff proved to be a dream in the mind of Dreyfuss' character.
Dreyfuss plays a gambler on the wagon, a Florida cabbie who is a racetrack bum, but who has promised his estranged wife (Teri Garr) that he's quit gambling and will move back in with her and try again to make the marriage work.
But when Dreyfuss' best friend (David Johansen) stumbles onto some inside information, Dreyfuss bets his last 50 bucks on the nose — and comes up a winner, more than $700 ahead. Then he gets another inside tip and decides to let it ride.
There are more races, none with inside information, but now that he's on a roll Dreyfuss manages to build up his winnings to $69,000, which he plunks down on the final race.
The idea here is that Dreyfuss is, as he says, "having a good day." A really good day. And there are some semi-spiritual implications to it all. But the dreamy quality of the overall film suggests that this may just be going on in the head of a loser who would just once — just once — like to have that winning day all gamblers dream of.
Dreyfuss is alternately manic and low-key, and he is hysterically funny throughout the film — whether praying for a winning horse, bantering with his cronies in a dive, being seduced by women (Jennifer Tilly and Michelle Phillips) in the more prestigious Jockey Club or trying to convince his wife that he knows what he's doing.
But the movie is not very well directed by first-timer Joe Pytka, and some of the characters, in particular Teri Garr's, are rather poorly defined. The film's worst technical problem is lousy editing, with surprising jump cuts and whole scenes that seem to come out of nowhere, in particular when Dreyfuss misses a race because he's falsely arrested as a pickpocket.
The supporting performances are good, especially Robbie Coltraine as a racetrack ticket-seller who at first treats Dreyfuss indignantly but gradually grows to respect him as an incredible winner.
"Let It Ride" is no great shakes, but it's really Dreyfuss' show and he runs with it. It's amazing how a star with comedy know-how can almost single-handedly save a movie as ill-conceived as this one.
The film is rated PG-13 for language, sexual innuendo, vulgarity and violence.