Molly's Game

"[voice-over] A survey was taken a few years ago that asked 300 professionals one question, "What's the worst thing that can happen in sports?" Some people answered losing a game 7, and other people said getting swept in the 4. Some people said it was missing the world cup, and some Brazilians said it was losing to Argentina. Not just in the world cup. Anytime, ever in any contest. But one person answered that the worst thing that can happen in sports is 4th place at the Olympics."

"[voice-over] Now two things you need to know before the second trick. which’ll be a 720. The first is that when visibility is bad the way it is now, race officials jam pine boughs in the snow at the edge of the jump so the skiers have some foreground depth reference. The second is that the tightness of your bindings is determined by what’s called a DIN setting. If you’re a beginner your DIN setting is probably 2 or 3. If you’re an experienced weekend skier it’s probably 7 or 8. Mine’s 15. My boots are basically welded to my skis. Right...so how does this happen? [her ski comes off in the air] It happened because I hit a pine bough and I hit it so precisely that it simply snapped the release on my bindings. Right in that moment I didn’t have time to calculate the odds of that happening because I was about to land pretty hard on my digitally remastered spinal cord which is being held together by spare parts from an Erector Set. None of this has anything to do with poker. I’m only mentioning it because I wanted to say to whoever answered that the worst thing that could happen in sports was 4th place at the Olympics - seriously, fuck you."

"[voice-over] Poker was my Trojan horse into the highest levels of finance, technology, politics, art, entertainment - all I had to do was listen."

"[voice-over] People have asked me what my goal was at that point, what was my endgame. Back then I would have laughed at that question. I was raised to be a champion, my goal was to win. At what and against whom? Those were just details."

"[voice-over] There was a track star from Pasadena in the 1930s named Matthew Robinson. Matthew Robinson shattered the Olympic record in the two-hundred at the Berlin Games in 1936. Absolutely shattered the Olympic record...and came in second. The man who came in first was Jesse Owens. Owens went on to be a legend. Matthew Robinson went on to be a janitor at a whites-only school in Pasadena. The difference was two-hundreths of a second. As if that wasn’t enough, Matthew Robinson had a little brother who was also an athlete. His name was Jack but everyone called him Jackie. I have two younger brothers who were also overachievers. While I was ranked 3rd in North America, my brother Jeremy was Number 1 in the world. And while I was placing into A.P. Chemistry as a junior, my brother Jordan was doing it when he was 12-years-old or something, I don’t know. I was a hotshot student and a hotshot skier everywhere but my own house. And that’s where we live. As I got older I began to bait my father into fights without really knowing why I was doing it."

"[voiceover] My game had a tricky ecosystem. It was built around escapism and exclusivity. These guys could buy their way into anything and anyone but here in this room you couldn’t buy your win. You couldn’t buy me, you couldn’t buy the girls and you couldn’t buy a seat at the table. There’s nothing as sweet as a win you have to work for and the wins and losses were compelling and they were real. Of course it helped that the players were gambling addicts."

"[voice-over] By midnight, Harlan had tripled his original fifty-thousand dollar buy-in. But everything came off the rails with one hand. And that’s how it happens, that’s how you go full tilt. Harlan, the best player at the table, the best player at most tables, was about to get bluffed off the win by, of all people...Bad Brad. How? Because Harlan had never played with Brad before, and didn't know yet that Brad was bad."

"[voice-over] By 5 a.m., Harlan was down half a million. He'd abandoned everything he knew about poker and was playing like a frat kid, swinging for a home run on every hand."

"[voice-over] When I lost the LA game I told myself it was no big deal. It was just supposed to be an adventure and a way to meet influential people. And I’d saved over two hundred thousand dollars. But that was just a weak firewall I’d hastily built to keep out the humiliation and depression I knew was coming. It had to end sometime, I just thought it would be on my time. I didn’t think it was gonna be taken away from me. And for such a stomach-turning reason."

"Because it's all I have left! Because it's my name... and I'll never have another."

"This woman does not belong in a RICO indictment, are you outta your minds?! She does not belong in a mob indictment, she raked a game, that’s it, for seven months two years ago. And why? Because she was giving credit in the millions and she didn’t want to use muscle to collect. She has had opportunity after opportunity to greatly benefit herself by simply telling the real stories she knows. Ok, I have the forensic imaging going back to 2007, and I'm talking about text messages, emails - movie stars, rock stars, athletes, billionaires; all explicit—some married with kids—but that’s the tip of the iceberg. What about the guy comes this close to being named U.S. Ambassador to Monaco, he’s withdrawn from consideration at the last minute, no one knows why. She does. CEOs with college-age mistresses, an SVP of an investment bank who wanted Molly to put a marked deck in the game, the head of a movie studio who texted her that a particular movie star was too black for his taste, J. Edgar Hoover didn’t have this much shit on Bobby! You know, she could’ve written a best seller, she could have been set for life. You know, you know she’s got the winning lottery ticket and she won’t cash it. Your office took every dollar she had in a Constitutionally fucked up seizure and then you put the IRS on her to tax what you seized? I mean, I’ve been in those strategy meetings. You broke her back so she couldn’t possibly afford to defend herself. And now she has an opportunity to guarantee her freedom by just...“providing color”...and she still won’t do it. This woman doesn’t belong in a RICO indictment, she belongs on a box of Wheaties. So yes, Harrison, I am imploring you to do the right thing. She knows nothing about the three Petes. Nothing about Taiwanchik. Nothing about RGO or insurance fraud. Between the two of us we’ve appeared in front of this judge 28 times as prosecutors and not once has he deviated from our sentencing recommendations, he’s not gonna start now. I know you’ve been putting this bust together for three years and there’s no one who doesn’t want to see mobsters go to jail, including and especially the one person in the room who’s had one of them put a gun in her mouth. Probation. Community service. Or better yet, just consider that all she did was run a poker game exactly the same way every casino in America does and drop the goddamn charges."

"Jessica Chastain - Molly Bloom"

"Idris Elba - Charlie Jaffey"

"Kevin Costner - Larry Bloom"

"Michael Cera - Player X"

"Brian d'Arcy James - Brad"

"Chris O'Dowd - Douglas Downey"

"J. C. MacKenzie - Harrison Wellstone"

"Bill Camp - Harlan Eustice"

"Graham Greene - Judge Foxman"

"Jeremy Strong - Dean Keith"

"Matthew D. Matteo - Bobby"

"Joe Keery - Cole"

"Natalie Krill - Winston"

"Claire Rankin - Charlene Bloom"