Bet Your Life is a 2004 Made-for-TV movie starring Billy Zane, Sean Carrrigan and Corinne Van Ryck de Groot.
Sonny Briggs, an former pro footballer and gambling addict, is deep in debt to several long sharks. Fleeing from a beautiful enforcer, he stumbles across a man being murdered in an alley behind a casino. Taking the dead man's membership card, he runs into the casino to hide. Here he is approached by Joseph: the same man he just saw commit murder. Joseph explains that that he and the dead man had been playing a game. He offers Sonny the same deal he had with the dead man: Joseph and his crew will hunt Sonny. If Sonny can evade them and stay alive for 24 hours, he will be paid $2.4 million. Accepting the bet, Sonny flees from Las Vegas to Cleveland in an attempt to stay ahead of the hunters. The hunt is on.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Carmen Rawlins: Badass Biker, Bounty Hunter and Kick Chick.
- Arms Dealer: On the flight from Las Vegas to Cleveland, Sonny meets a sleazy gun dealer returning from a convention who agrees to sell him a couple of guns in the bathroom at Cleveland airport.
- Attack the Injury: During their fight in the lift bridge control room, Joseph kicks Sonny in his bad knee: the result of his Career-Ending Injury.
- Bounty Hunter: Carmen is a bounty hunter who works bringing in defaulters for a loan shark.
- Captain Crash: Sonny destroys multiple vehicles (most of them not his) in his attempts to escape from Joseph and his goons, who are Hunting the Most Dangerous Game with him as the prey.
- Car Cushion: Falling of the gantry on the lift bridge, Sonny and Joseph land on the bonnet of the truck they blew up earlier.
- The Casino: The action starts and ends in the Tower Casino: an exclusive, members-only high-roller casino in Las Vegas. It is so that exclusive that when Chuck tries to get info on the place, he learns that many of the major playersin Vegas have never even heard of it.
- Career-Ending Injury: Sonny was an up-and-coming footballer until he suffered a knee injury that destroyed his career.
- Dramatic Ammo Depletion: Joseph has a bead on Sonny's back as Sonny is running away from him and squeezes the trigger, only to discover that he hadn't been counting his shots during the firefight and his gun is empty. By the time he has changed clips, Sonny has disappeared into the bushes.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: When Joseph is holding a knife at Sonny's throat, he warns Carmen that she can't shoot him without killing Sonny. She fires anyway, but the shot goes nowhere near Joseph. A few seconds later, there is an explosion that forces the Joseph and Sonny apart and Joseph realises that Carmen had shot one of the fuel drums on the truck behind them.
- Fire Hose Cannon: Sonny uses the deluge gun on a fire boat to knock Joseph out of his helicopter: firing the stream of water in one door and out the other.
- The Gambling Addict: Sonny is a gambling addict who is deep in debt to loan sharks. When he is given $5000 in complimentary chips at the Tower Casino, he tells himself that he should just cash the chips and walk out. He can't.
- Gambler Groupies: When Sonny starts winning at the craps table, two beautiful women attach themselves either side of him. They later lure him up to the penthouse. However, they are actually plants for Joseph who slip tracking devices into his clothes.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: When Sonny is thinking about getting out of the elevator and not going to the penthouse, the two Gambler Groupies start making out to make him change his mind.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Sonny swipes several vehicles while running around Cleveland attempting to evade Joseph. None of them survive the experience. Carmen also knocks out a biker at Cleveland airport and steals his hog. She, at least, manages to keep her stolen ride intact.
- High-Dive Escape: When trapped on the disabled lift bridge with Joseph, Sonny and Carmen escape by leaping off the bridge into the river.
- High-Speed Hijack: When Sonny steals a truck full of fuel drums, Joseph jumps on to the back, and then climbs across the top of the load before sticking his gun through the driver's window.
- How We Got Here: Opens with Sonny being thrown off the balcony of Tower Casino, before the action freezes, and Sonny's narration starts explaining how this situation came about.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Joseph offers Sonny $2.4 million to be his prey and avoid him and his hunters 24 hours.
- I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Carmen uses her cleavage to try and and schmooze her way past the doorman at the Tower Casino, but he is too dedicated to his job. She then tries it on a member who is far more susceptible.
- In Medias Res: Opens with Sonny fighting with Joseph and being thrown off the balcony of the casino before pausing and Sonny's narration launching into How We Got Here.
- Kick Chick: Bounty Hunter Action Girl Carmen uses a fighting style that primarily relies on kicks whenever she is not using guns. She is able to drop several of Joseph's armed mooks with kicks in the casino.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: The film was made to showcase the 'talents' of Sean Carrrigan and Corinne Van Ryck de Groot: the male and female winners of the Reality Show Next Action Star.
- Outside Ride: Joseph jumps out of the back of his Humvee on to the bonnet of Chuck's limo, where he smashes his way through the windscreen and starts strangling Sonny, while still laying on the bonnet.
- Pants-Positive Safety: Dark Action Girl Alex carries an automatic shoved down the back of her extremely tight jeans.
- The Precious, Precious Car: Sonny rents (for an obscene amount of cash) a battered old camper from the owner of a gas station. The owner is reluctant to rent it out as it contains a lot of good memories about his late wife, but eventually agrees. Sonny promises to return it without a scratch. Needless to say, it gets trashed minutes later when Joseph shoots it with a grenade launcher.
- Racing the Train: Sonny is in a taxi cab being chased by Carmen on a motorbike. When Carmen starts shooting at him, he orders the cab to drive through a freight yard. Racing alongside a freight train, Sonny grabs the wheel from the driver and and wrenches the cab across the tracks in front of the train. The cab gets hit by the train, but Sonny and the driver manage to bail out on the far side, leaving Carmen stuck until the train finishes passing.
- Read the Fine Print: When Carmen reads the document detailing the bet between Sonny and Joseph, she points out to Sonny a clause he hadn't notice (given he he barely glanced at the paper before signing it, this is not surprising). It stipulates that he must be in the Tower Casino when the 24 hours expires in order to claim the money. Sonny suddenly realises that he has about five to get from Cleveland to Las Vegas.
- Tacky Tuxedo: Chuck is driving a prom couple to an after party when he has to detour to the casino to pick up Sonny. The boy is wearing a powder blue tuxedo with a ruffled shirt. The movie is set in 2004 and the girl is wearing a perfectly ordinary red spaghetti strap dress. No reason is given for why he is dressed like that.
- Tae Kwon Door: When Chuck tries to shout a warning to Sonny, one of the thugs hiding in the limo uses the limo door to knock him down.
- Villainous Rescue: Joseph almost succeeds in strangling Sonny in Chuck's limo, but Carmen rides up, also looking to kill Sonny, and her shots cause Joseph to fall off the car.
