“Winner Winner”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Win Win is the third film written and directed by Tom McCarthy, after the 2003 The Station Agent and the 2007 The Visitor, and if you saw those two films, you have a good idea of how excellent this one is, also.

You might not Win Win Moviehave seen those films, because low-budget, independent films don’t have extended runs in theaters, no matter how excellent they are.

So, see this one as soon as you can.

Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty. He is a husband and father of two girls, but the twist is that he is a struggling lawyer in New Jersey and the coach of a high-school wrestling team that, for lack of a better word, is awful.

Mike is struggling with problems in all aspects of his life, starting at home with a dead tree in the front yard. His wife, Jackie, makes him promise to call someone about it, because she says, “I don’t want it coming down on the house.”

But when Mike gets to his office in an old residential house, he has other problems to worry about. He is going to need $6,000 to replace the boiler in the basement even though it was repaired three months ago.

Also, one of his clients, Leo Poplar, is in the early stages of dementia, and a judge wants to appoint a guardian for him. So, Mike volunteers to be Leo’s guardian, even though Leo wants to live in his own house, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in over 20 years.

However, Mike tells Leo that the court has ordered Leo to live in a retirement home, puts him in one, and then pockets the money that Leo gets every month.

Complicated, right? And maybe even illegal.

But wait. There is more. Leo’s 16-year-old grandson, Kyle, suddenly shows up, having run away from home in Ohio and wanting to live with Leo, because his mother is in a drug-treatment program and they don’t get along at all.

So, Jackie takes pity on Kyle and invites him to stay with them.

But, wait, there is still more. Kyle is an excellent wrestler, which solves one of Mike’s problems, but then Kyle’s mother shows up, which causes even more problems.

Win Win brings to mind “Winner Winner, chicken dinner,” as the kids like to say.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”