Fever Pitch

Writer-director Richard Brooks' final film features a weak script and poor acting but high energy direction in a tale of compulsive gambling in Las Vegas. Ryan O'Neal stars as Taggart, a sports reporter obsessed with gambling. As Taggart gets deeper and deeper into debt, he compounds his problems ...more

The final film by Richard Brooks is unfortunately a camp classic of the first order. Fever Pitch tries to be a sincere expose of gambling but it is so far off the mark its practically a work of surrealism. Brooks goes for a flashy style that is very much of its mid-1980's vintage (rock video-style editing, a pulsing synth score) but his storyline and dialogue rely on the kind of hokey conventions that haven't been seen and heard since the 1940's. Despite the anti-gambling tone of the story, he ...more