The movie is about this poker-player, Maverick (who is quite fast with the gun, yet a horrible shooter), who wants so badly to get into a poker tournament.
But the price just to get in is too much for Maverick to pay, so he sets on this journey to get enough money for the contest, which he does by getting back money from people who owe him.
Sounds quite boring, huh? Well that's what I thought too, before I saw it (check the stars for my opinion now).
Because on the way, Maverick will be fooled and lied to, in the most funny ways, and he'll deliver just about the same amount of lies back.
This leads to quite a lot of twists, small ones aswell as big ones.
And it's all made so 'darn' funny!

I remember this one moment of the movie (don't worry, no twist-revealers here) where Maverick is in this bank to get some cash from this guy who owes him quite a lot.
The banker says that he doesn't have anything.
All of the sudden, this masked black guy runs into the bank with a gun and tells them that it's a stick-up.
As all this is happening, the black guy loses his mask, revealing the face of Danny Glover!
And even better, both Maverick and the robber looks at each other, and you can see by the way they react that they both think "haven't we met before"?
And of course they have! In Lethal Weapon! (both of these movies are directed by Richard Donner, so this is kind of a treat for the Lethal Weapon fans).
Anyway, so when the robber tells the banker to give him all his money, he gives him this big bunk, which he had already told Maverick that he didn't have!
That's just one of the millions of tricks and lies they play on each other during the movie. Just about EVERYONE who has a line in this movie, is lying about something to someone!

And without revealing too much more, I'll just say that you will have LOTS of more treats and twists to look forward to when you watch the movie.
I don't think that five minutes passes by without anyone lying to someone or a twist being revealed.

I so enormously recommend you to watch this movie. Whether you are a comedy-fan, action-fan, western-fan or just a film-lover doesn't matter. You'll love it no matter what!

Buy it, watch it.... and watch it again!


Great comedy without depth.   January 24, 2004
 2 out of 8 found this review helpful

Maverick” is a ”who-cheats-who?”-comedy about a number of tricksters who converge on a riverboat-gambling-competition in the Wild West. It resembles a 1940-screwball-comedy more than a western, and Jodie Foster reminded this reviewer of Katharine Hepburn at her best.

Compared to Jodie Foster's other movies she is close to overacting several times - like she is on a stage rather than acting in a movie. It is very enjoyable to watch her and a very confident Mel Gibson together, and it seems like they really enjoyed making this movie. Unfortunately the script is much poorer than the classics from the 1930s and 1940s. Despite the two actors' efforts there are just not enough one-liners to keep the story interesting. This makes the movie perfectly forgetable except for Jodie Foster's facial expressions when she cheats Mel Gibson - or discovers that she has been cheated.

Four stars is a quite generous rating, which is entirely due to the two lead actors. Any other casting would have resulted in two or at most three stars. Don't expect to watch it more than a few times.


Forget the critics!   October 13, 2003
 3 out of 5 found this review helpful

The film is a truly funny magical comic masterpiece. The two male leads offer some great scenes, but the very best performance by far is that of Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster in the role of Mrs Annabelle Bransford. In this role she really shows that as well as her serious acting skills, she has near-perfect comedic timing.
The picture quality on the DVD version is excellent; as is the sound.