Log Line:  "Jacks or Better" is a dark comedy about a man who kills his wife in the kitchen so he can play poker in the living room.

It's Friday night and a murder has just been committed in a suburban home. Not that this detail bothers Jack, a gruff, angry, middle-aged man who has played cards with his friends EVERY Friday night for the past 21 years-no exceptions, no substitutions, no digressions. Hell hath no fury like a poker player scorned in JACKS OR BETTER, a black comedy/drama that is sometimes moody in its off-center hilarity and often evokes the grim apathy found in films like RIVER'S EDGE and SHORT CUTS. Writer/Director Robert Sidney Mellette crafts a film in which tension, nervousness and anxiety between Jack and his son Trip build during several games of poker. Soon small talk between friends gives way to barely cloaked ruminations about murder and suicide. Personal secrets are disclosed, buddies explode at each other in anger and events are spurred forward by friction to an unusual climax. JACKS OR BETTER features a solid cast of actors. If life is like a poker game, then anything is possible till the last card falls, but a man can only bluff for so long. He eventually has to put down his hand and begin taking his chances.

--Albert Lanier for the Hawaii International Film Festival