Vince Van Patten's film, '7 Days to Vegas', will debut in theaters at the end of September and will also be available on video-on-demand series at the end of the month. Vince Van Patten wrote, produced, and acted in the film which also includes cameos from Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Jen Tilly, and Antonio Esfandiari.
VVP's new movie is coming out soon! The new film '7 Days to Vegas' is not a poker movie per se, but it's more about poker players doing degen prop bets. In this instance, a character played by and based on Vince Van Patten has seven days to walk from Hollywood to Las Vegas.
According to Van Patten, the film is "Like 'The Hangover' meets 'The Sting'." Both are iconic films in their own right, so the combo of the two sounds enticing.
Van Patten's wife, a former regular on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, plays his wife in the film. Van Patten's brother Jimmy also appears in the film as Vince's brother. If you're too young to recall, Van Patten is the son of actor Dick Van Patten, who was well-known in poker circles as a regular in Vegas and big-games in Hollywood. Vince Van Patten dabbled in both pro tennis and acting. He never quite reached the big time in tennis, but found his niche as an announcer for the World Poker Tour along side Mike Sexton.
Van Patten said he wanted to make a funny movie about his friends and their hijinks, but in a style that you would want to watch "over and over again like fifteen times." Not all of the best comedies and cult classic were huge hits on the big screen. Many of those amazing movies that you quote nonstop were trashed by critics and ignored by the public, but they became cult classic via cable TV and video stores. Hopefully, Van Patten's film can achieve that cult-like status through video-on-demand services.
In this film, Van Patten's character gets involved in a prop bet in which he must walk (jogging and running permitted) from LA to Las Vegas in seven days. The stipulations involved wearing a suit and carrying food and water, but he could not walk at night.
Los Angeles to Las Vegas is approximately 280 miles. If you walked 40 miles per day, you could reach Vegas. That's more than 1.5 marathons per day. I'm sure some of the fittest among you who compete in Ironman races could pull this off easily. However, a slovenly poker player who makes an impulse wager with his friends is probably not in the fittest shape in the world. That's what makes the wager even more absurd. Heck, it would take me a month to walk the route if I maxed out at 10 miles per day. In reality, it would probably take me two months!
A couple of years ago, several poker players were involved in prop bets in which they rode a bicycle from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Dan Bilzerian pulled off the feat after Bill Perkins bet him $600,000. In addition, Samantha Abernathy and Brian Rast also pulled off the dangerous ride that lasted almost 280 miles.
Then again, if there's any whiff of gambling or poker in a movie, the poker community will flock to it. "Rounders" is the best example of how a film could fly under the radar of critics, bean counters, and the public... yet achieve iconic status within a micro-community. Over the years, "Rounders" is not just one of the most-quoted films in poker rooms around the world, but it's become a part of modern poker lore and vernacular.
Gambling films are back in style again thanks to video-on-demand services and an escalating cold war between mega-giant streaming services. Also this year, Poker Queens will make its debut on Amazon Prime.
Mississippi Grind is the last good poker film that both critics and hardcore players enjoyed. However, it's nearly impossible to top what Matt Damon and Ed Norton achieved in Rounders.
Watch the trailer for 7 Days to Vegas here…
