Rounders
(1998)
Rumours of a
sequel to Matt Damon poker drama were doing the rounds for years, but appear to
have come to nothing. Since the Weinsteins produced the film, and they will
sequelise anything (quality be damned), I think we dodged a bullet. They even
have/had a Shakespeare in Love sequel
on the cards.
A well-conceived
games/sports movie ought not to require the viewer to have a firm grasp of its
rules, in my opinion. As long as the gameplay follows narrative rhythms it
should be accessible to all. At least, that’s my experience and I’m most
certainly not a poker player. Rounders definitely
works on that level, aided by a confidential Damon narration; unfortunately
it’s also all-but-submerged under its own surfeit of clichés.
However, with a
cast this good, the results are never less than watchable. This came out in the
same year Damon took home an Oscar for his Good
Will Hunting script. The Weinsteins were keen to groom their Matts and Bens
at the time, and one wonders if Damon’s blonde highlights weren’t attempt to
give him a more traditional leading man appeal. He’s playing a standard Damon
type here; a good-natured and earnest law student who is pulled back into the
world of gambling when his weasely best friend (Edward Norton) is released from
prison. Norton was also riding high from a Best Supporting Actor nomination for
Primal Fear a year earlier. He’s as
good as always, but his character is so tiresomely familiar that it just goes
to reinforce how predictable the whole piece is.
The supporting
cast features an array of fine thesps wearing two-dimensional (at best) characters;
John Malkovich chews the scenery as Russian mobster Teddy KGB, John Turturro is
the long game-minded steady player, Gretchen Mol (nice to see her profile rise
again with Boardwalk Empire) the
nagging girlfriend and Martin Landau the kindly mentor. Landau’s part is easily
the silliest, requiring him to launch into a rambling anecdote about his Jewish
upbringing every time Matt pays a call. You’re put in mind of a long-winded
comedy relative from a Woody Allen movie. Even Famke Janssen appears in a small
role; either the ensemble thought the script was better on paper or Harvey did
a lot of sweet-talking.
John Dahl directs
with the kind of new-noir confidence he’s made his signature style, but this is
definitely one of his more minor works. His refreshingly retro earlier thrillers
(Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) petered out into more standard genre stylings
as his career continued (this and Joy
Ride). He hasn’t directed a movie since 2007’s You Kill Me, which is a shame. But it’s at least a small
consolation that he’s been working on some of the best TV shows around right
now (Californication, Justified, Dexter, Breaking Bad).
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