World Poker Tour commentators, Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten and Courtney Friel played themselves.
A number of other professional poker players and poker-playing celebrities, including Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker and Isabelle Mercier are in the cast.
Overnight, Tommy warns Alex that the other players will try to keep him awake with distractions, such as crank phone calls and knocks at the door.
Shocked at the money Alex has made, his parents reluctantly agree to let him compete in the World Poker Tour tournament in a few weeks.
The two play for several days, with Alex quickly building up a chip lead, and Tommy slowly grinding his way up, until both players reach the final table.
The website's consensus reads: "Employing multiple cinematic clichés and milking stale performances, Deal proves inadequate for even the lowly regarded poker movie genre.
"[1] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
"[4] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter criticized Cates Jr's filmmaking for sacrificing "crucial cinematic element[s]" during the poker scenes by utilizing "deadly staging" when shooting his actors, saying "the dull production obviously sees itself as an updated "Cincinnati Kid" for the World Poker Tour set, but the end result and its characters have all the originality and dramatic depth of a TV telecast.
"[5] James Berardinelli felt the movie had "a checklist of clichés than an actual script", commended the "dull and unsuspenseful" poker sequences for being the film's saving grace, and criticized the character development and conversations for being "dead-in-the-water", calling it "the kind of disposable entertainment that can waste away 90 minutes of insomnia-driven late night channel surfing.
"[6] Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times wrote that: "[The] direction by [Gil] Cates Jr. is inept at best, and the script by Cates and Marc Weinstock seems to operate under the assumption that trafficking in flabby clichés -- the kindly call girl, the scrappy youngster, the angry dad -- will somehow smooth over the underdeveloped characters.
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "Moving slowly these days, Reynolds does less than no acting in this role, and he's still the best thing in "Deal.
"[9] J. R. Jones of the Chicago Reader noted that he effortlessly revives "his 70s screen persona as a strutting paragon of male shrewdness and sexuality.
"[6] Olsen felt that Reynolds "doesn't convey any of the lightning bolt insouciance that made him arguably the greatest movie star of the '70s and '80s (really) but rather just stands there.
"[7] He was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor (also for In the Name of the King) at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards, losing to Pierce Brosnan for Mamma Mia.