Martin Scorsese directs this sequel to 'The Hustler'. Old-time pool sharp Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) has quit the game but still acts as an unofficial agent for up-and-coming hustlers. One such is the young, precocious but talented Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise), who has a hard time accepting Eddie's advice that he should sometimes throw games in order to soften up an opponent.

The pair fall out and go their separate ways, but not before Eddie has been inspired to pick up the pool cue once more. Martin Scorcese handles directing duties in this 1986 sequel to the classic 1961 film The Hustler, which marks the return of Paul Newman to the role of pool shark Fast Eddie Felson.

Anxious to break into the big time again, Eddie finds a talented protg (Tom Cruise) to groom; but with the addition of the latter's manipulative girlfriend (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and the wild streak in Cruise's character, the trio makes for a fascinating portrait in group psychology.

The cast is brilliant, the script by Richard Price ( Clockers) is a paragon of tightly controlled character study and drama (at least in the film's first half), and Scorcese and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus make an ornate show of the collision and flight of pool balls through space--something of a metaphor for the dynamics among the three principals.

The film is generally regarded as weaker in its second half, and rightly so, as everything that was interesting in the first place disappears. Still, Newman won a deserved Oscar for his performance. --Tom Keogh.