7 of 10
Cinematography by Jean-Yves Escoffier
Matt Damon
Edward Norton
John Turturro
John Malkovich
Martin Landau
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
| Rounders 7 of 10 |
||||||
| Directed by John Dahl Cinematography by Jean-Yves Escoffier Matt Damon Edward Norton John Turturro John Malkovich Martin Landau |
||||||
| In American slang, a rounder is someone who "knows all the angles" and earns his living at the poker table; the absolute opposite of a sucker. So, this is a film about poker sharks, which I would have thought would be either confusing, or superficial, or both. But it is neither. The script does a particularly good job of letting you know what's going on during the card games, using all the shorthand terms and language professional players would use, but still leaving you with enough information to understand what's happening. And the script is also very compelling. Though not unpredictable, I'd have to say; in fact, very predictable. If you've seen an underdog movie, you'll know the way this one is going. But that doesn't matter, because you are really interested in the characters, and in what happens to them, even if you have strong suspicions of the outcome. Damon is solid as Mike McDermott, the rounder who always plays things straight. And Edward Norton is excellent as "Worm" Murphy, who always needs to have an edge, even if that means cheating, and, finally, failing. He takes on the difficult task of creating a character that the audience finds both incredibly irritating and also wants to see saved. And he achieves this difficult balance; admirable work. The rest of the cast is also very good, with particular note going to John Turturro (a quiet man who grinds out a meger living at the various poker joints around town), John Malkovich (a Russian Mafia leader who runs the biggest joint in NY, and is McDermott's main opponent), and Martin Landau (a NY judge, and the real father figure in the story). The pacing is superb, and the film's visuals are also very fine, with a great deal of emphasis placed on visual story-telling, rather than dialogue. A lot of time spent at the card tables, where the audience spends time learning about the characters of the players, at the same time as they are learning about each other. All in all, a very fun film, with a fair amount of truth concealed under its surface. | ||||||