Sweaty palms and uncomfortable laughter. This is what I think of when I think of gambling. To tell you the truth, I don't think I would be much of a gambler. The only thing that really appeals to me is the shady sunglasses. I mean I was good at lying to my parents about eating my vegetables, but the idea of loosing hard earned money is just too much for my sensitive heart.

Writer-director Randall Cole puts an suspenseful and humorous take on an ordinary man caught up in gambling debts in Real Time. A fresh sigh of relief from watching has-been celebrities gamble their money is dire desperation for attention, this charming movie keeps you rolling along with Andy (Jay Baruchel) through his mishap of being chased down for borrowed money by the mob.

So Andy is given one hour to live by mob hitman, Reuban (Randy Quaid) or pay-up. When I realized the suffocation of this sort of a fate was when the first layer of sticky residue formed of my nervousness. This one hour represents a retrospective journey for Andy about his life, decisions and offenses against the people he knows.

This got me thinking...what would I do if I had one hour left to live? Hmmm. Well to tell you quite honestly, I am still not sure. I feel as thought it would involve music, perhaps writing and hopefully a cocoon of the people I love around me being hysterical and chanting "PARUL, PARUL!" I picture ethnic women in saris, a soft wind and my cat.

I would like to think similar to Andy, I would try and make penance for the things I have damaged, or the people I may have hurt.

Ah but lives too short to worry now about tomorrow. The point Cole makes in Real Time is that life is bit like a double entendre, funny and sad, hopeful and doomful. Place your bets now, but remember the stakes for tomorrow.

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