A new documentary on the rise and fall and rise again of poker is hitting theaters this month. It’s called “All In – The Poker Movie” and it opens in theaters nationwide on March 23rd, 2012. It will also be made available on iTunes as of April 24th.
The movie features narration by Matt Damon and a star-studded cavalcade of celebrity poker players, many of whom are subjects of the documentary’s storyline, such as Chris Moneymaker, the first amateur online poker player to win the WSOP championship, and the first in a long line of them to follow.
But Moneymaker is far from the only or first trendsetter in poker, and movie watchers can enjoy a trip back to poker’s early days when legendary players Stu Unger and Amarillo Slim looked spry and baby-faced and had no clue their little high stakes tournament experiment would one day transform into that very same World Series of Poker where thousands of players from around the world converge on Las Vegas to vie to split tens of millions of dollars in cash rewards and a place in poker’s history books (or perhaps the next poker documentary.)
The story of the U.S. D.O.J.’s seizure and closure of the 3 biggest poker sites in the world at the time: Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars also plays a central role in this film, including the aftermath of that blow to the poker world.
As the star of “Rounders” considered a classic of poker moviemaking, Matt Damon seems a fitting choice to put a Hollywood profile on this Las Vegas story.