Rounders (1998) (*** out of ******)
(c) The Stockholm Film Review http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/heat/435/rounders.htm
After law student Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) loses all of his money in a poker game to a violent Russian loanshark Teddy KGB (John Malkovich), he promises his girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol) that he has given up gambling for good. This pledge is put to the test nine months later when a childhood friend (and fellow cardsharp) Lester "Worm" Murphy (Edward Norton) is released from prison. Lester is heavily indebted to loansharks and is anxious to win enough money to pay them back. However, while Mike relies on his skill to read body language and keep track of which cards have already been played, Lester prefers to cheat.
John Dahl's examination of card players seems like two movies grafted clumsily together. The first is a low-budget tale of people on the margins - desperately hoping for the big score which they think will transform their lives without realising that their obsession can only consume them rather than save them. The other movie is a star vehicle for rising stars Damon and Norton, with heavy-duty cameos from Malkovich, John Turturro and Martin Landau. Unfortunately, the synergy does not add to the entertainment.
Dahl evokes the seedy surroundings of seedy back-street gambling dens most effectively and populates this environment with realistic characters. Turturro plays a professional poker player, Joey Knish, who 'has never worked a day in his life' since he earns a solid if unremarkable income from his card games. McDermott (who is close to him) is vaguely contemptuous of Knish because he never risks everything just to bluff an opponent (which is how McDermott lost all his money to begin with). There's nothing glamorous about Knish and the other players - since the all know the tricks of the trade, they don't win much money off each other. Occasionally, they all head out to Atlantic City and separate some unsuspecting tourists from their cash.
Since gambling involves losing money, loansharks feature heavily on the scene, and the collection of a particular debt provides the dynamic which drives the film. On his release, Worm tempts Mike back into an all-night game with some wealthy students. Since the students don't know that the two are working together, Worm pretends to lose everything while Mike makes a killing. However, Mike doesn't realise the extent of Worm's debt and that Worm has been using Mike's name to gain credit and to run up more debt.
As Worm's luck turns bad, and his debt increases, he find out that his debt belongs to Teddy KGB, who will resort to very extreme methods to retrieve his money. His only hope is to raise enough money by going on a non-stop gambling spree in a week. Since Mike is a better player, Worm needs to his help or his doomed. This poses a dilemma for Mike, since he knows that he will lose his girlfriend and probably his law-degree if he agrees to help Worm.
John Dahl's previous movies (such as Red Rock West and The Last Seduction) have centred around deception and are usually inhabited by people with a very healthy distrust of each other. One would think that a film about poker-players, given that deception is an integral part of the game, that enable Dahl bring the same darkly gleeful interplay between the main protagonists. This doesn't happen, simply because the plot is too pedestrian to provide any diversions from the well-trodden path of predictability.
There are certain conventions which are always followed in film-making. For example, in a western, we all know that at the end of the movie, the hero (unless it's a horse) will strap on a gun, walk down a dusty street and shoot it out with the bad guy. Similarly, in a movie that features games such as pool or cards, there will have to be a climactic winner-takes-all match at the end, between the underdog, no-hope hero and the reigning champion whom nobody has ever beaten. Dahl doesn't stray from this convention and his intentions are clearly signalled from the outset of the movie. It is a bit surprising, considering the offbeat and original treatment he afforded to the genre of the heist movie in his previous work.
The weakest element, by a mile, is Matt Damon. He is not the least bit convincing as some-one so obsessed with gambling that he will sacrifice his career and relationship for gambling. His fresh-faced, clean-cut looks contrast sharply with the worn, faded appearance of the other card-playing characters, and it simply not credible that he could inhabit, with ease, the same world as Teddy KGB and Turturro (excellent as the world-weary Knish). His miscasting is highlighted by the narration (delivered by Damon) which is wise beyond his years - the voice simply doesn't fit the story it is telling. Damon seems to have taken the concept of a "poker face" too seriously, since he reserves the same half-smirk to express every emotion. I'm an admirer of Damon as an actor, but I did not think that this was a good performance.
Edward Norton fares better as Worm, though his role is less substantial. His character is simply present to act as a foil for Mike and to test his resolve, and is subsequently less well developed. Though the supposed bond between Mike and Worm is crucial to the film, it is entirely unconvincing, and as Worm gets himself into more trouble, there is no clear reason why Mike should stick with him. The conflict between Mike's gambling and his duties as a law student are glossed over, except to provide some perfunctory conflict between him and his girlfriend (also a law student). The prospect and consequence of giving up law school is hardly considered. Gretchen Mol looks as beautiful and delicate as porcelain, but she and Damon might as well be brother and sister in the film as lovers, such is the lack of passion between them. However, this is a fault of the script rather than the actors, since they have very little time together onscreen.
The supporting cast are far stronger, though Malkovich's Russian accent is more likely to provoke laughs than evince menace. Despite Dahl's attention to detail early in the movie, the film resorts to some standard Hollywood tricks later in the movie. Both Worm and Lester seem to be able to do without sleep for days at a time without feeling (or looking) any the worst for wear. They are both the recipients of a Rodney King-style beating , but are back on their feet with just a few scratches in the next scene. And Norton's character seems to do some particularly stupid things just to propel the plot to the next scene.
Rounders is a bit like The Cincinnati Kid or even The Color of Money when it should have been like The Hustler - solid without being unexceptional. Given the cast and the director, I would have expected far more.
Directed by John Dahl.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews