The pull of this film for me was the cast; Bruce Willis, Joshua Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vince Vaughan... and that it looked a funny premise. I didn't realise it was based on a true story - the story of Beth (Beth Raymer) who leaves small town America to make a life for herself in the big city, bright lights of Vegas.

I always enjoy stories where girls build themselves up from nothing, doing whatever it takes and I liked Beth's outlook on life well played by Rebecca Hall light-heartedly and convincingly. Her character was flighty and silly, and it is nice to see such a story where horrible things didn't happen to her (lucky!) Other than the language in this film (the worst of which is from the Welsh lips of Ms Zeta-Jones, almost unrecognisable as American, Tulip both in terms of look and character) it's pretty innocent, some topless sunbathing excepting. Bruce Willis wasn't so Bruce Willis as usual and I liked his wayward yet lovable character and he brought some much needed contour to otherwise quite flat performances. During the film I did wonder why everyone was so one-dimensional but as it's a true story, they were I suppose just going with the story that happened - some of the reactions people had were unexplained, as were Beth's seemingly easy transitions. The gorgeous and talented Joshua Jackson was under-utilised in this film as an actor but seeing as it was a character-based biopic there's not much that could be done about that. Vince Vaughan managed to be exactly who he usually is in films, and Laura Prepon as Holly had a good, small part character role which she did really well in.

The film is about gambling so I didn't understand all that went on but there were moments where it was quite tense, given what was being done was illegal, but the end was predictable but as it's a true story why shouldn't it be? You cared enough about the characters that you did want a happy ending and it's nice that Beth's good personality and sunny disposition wins out and all is well. As films go - biopic aside - it's not that great as it wasn't particularly challenging or deep, and the main character's antics were naïve and rather silly, so you find her a little annoying, but she was plucky and from the point of view of the real person she did very well for herself. It is, what it is. It entertained for an hour or so but I'm glad I didn't see it at the cinema as I would have been disappointed as it wasn't as funny as I expected. It's definitely an average, middle of the road standard film on all counts; screenplay, direction and performances but it's worth watching.

If I hadn't seen Rebecca Hall in any other movie I guess I wouldn't have been amazed by the transformation or her performance in general in this movie. You really buy her ... let's call it naive nature, she puts on display here. Bruce Willis is pretty passive, which works in a way, but not throughout. Joshua and Catherine are not used in the best way possible, but the main focus is on Rebecca so that can be forgiven.

Story-wise, there is not that much exciting or new happening, the jokes are not always working, but the movie has a low budget charm to it (if you can accept that and not look at it as a star vehicle movie with a big budget). It's a nice little movie, that has more potential than it shows on screen.

Beth (Rebecca Hall), having drifted into private dancing (home visits leading to small scale prostitution) decides to leave small-town Florida and head for Las Vegas, where a more fulfilling life as a cocktail waitress beckons. Alas, cocktail waitressing in Vegas is a difficult nut to crack, and beth ends up working for Dink (Bruce Wilis) who makes his living from his sports gambling company. What follows is the story of Beth's progress, and her involvement with Dink, his wife Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones), journalist Jeremy (Joshua Jackson), bookmaker Rosie (Vince Vaughan) and gambler Dave (John Carroll Lynch).

The need to classify films is sometimes a problem, and this is the case here. The closing titles tell us that Beth married Jeremy, took a degree and became a writer: the film is based on her personal memoir and, like real life, is episodic and unstructured. So, while it is often amusing, it is not a comedy, while it is sometimes dramatic it is not a drama and, in fact, it isn't really a story at all, it is simply a recollection of a period in her life.

My main criticism is that as someone who is not a sports fan and doesn't bet, big chunks of this movie were as opaque to me as a movie with big chunks set on the floor of a stock exchange would have been. I understand that this is inevitable, but it was something of a problem.

And this is a shame, because the film otherwise kept me occupied in a very agreeable manner. Rebecca Hall is a delight. Having played serious characters previously, with a tendency towards the plain, Beth is a sunny, engaging, leggy, sexy pleasure, but all the characters are quite nice people (which, frankly, I find unlikely, but that didn't matter: I enjoyed the film anyway. And it was a pleasure to see Vince Vaughan playing a different character.