# Rounders (1998)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    ROUNDERS (1998)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: John Dahl Writers: David Levien and Brian Koppelman Starring: Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Gretchen Mol, John Turturro, Famke Janssen, John Malkovich, Martin Landau

"Rounders" spends a lot of time in the cellars and card clubs of Manhattan and elsewhere to prove one thing to itself: it has no problem with diving full head into its subject. This is not a film where the hero learns a lesson about gambling and the dangers thereof over the course of the film. He doesn't win one last card game in the end to prove to himself that he can in fact beat the best card player in the world so that he never has to play again. He doesn't even get the girl in the end.

The fact that it doesn't bullshit itself about gambling is one of the few reasons "Rounders" works at all. This film is never more exciting and engrossing when characters are engaging in a tough game of poker, with the stakes reaching as high as they can possibly go, smoke teeming from everywhere, and cool jazz music underscoring everything. And it's never more boring than when it's dealing with the melodrama of the plot or the lives of the characters. If this film had just been two hours of guys playing poker games, with a very skimpy plot, I'd actually be more pleased.

But screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman don't have the guts to do that. I imagine that the first draft of this film really took us into the lives of Rounders, the guys who play poker for a living. Imagine a stylistic masterpiece that introduced us to the lives of these people, and showed many games and the methods they use. Films are never more engrossing when the characters are the spotlight and plot elements are just the reaons we watch them, especially when they have such an interesting subject.

As such, "Rounders" is merely adequate, with signs of brilliance underneath that go pretty much unchecked. The film opens nicely, with an intense game of poker between the film's protagonist, one Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), a young law student who is a kick-ass poker player, and Teddy, a.k.a. KGB (John Malkovich), a Russian mobster who is a more kick-ass poker player. Mike typically loses, but the film really works because it's not really about the outcome. It cherishes the process of playing poker, and the narration by Mike is so good and fascinating that it sets the film up unfairly, in a sense.

Mike decides that he's not going to play poker, as a promise to his beautiful girlfriend, Jo (Gretchen Mol), who comes off not so much as a nice girlfriend who's really cared about him but more as a painful maternal annoyance. Mike's life changes when his old best friend, nicknamed Worm (Edward Norton), gets out of jail for a gambling rap and needs to make a ton of money to pay off some outstanding debts to some very bad people. So for the first hour, Mike has the dilmena of whether he should help out a friend and gamble...or fuck him over and obey his girlfriend instead.

By the second hour, though, Mike has given over to the gambling side, and when Mike and Worm are playing numerous tables, trying to make his money back, which Mike has agreed to share with him, the film really takes off. A worthy subplot is introduced towards the beginning, showing that Worm likes to cheat, which not only gets him in trouble, but conflicts with Mike's code of gambling ethics. It works because there's a real tension between these two as a result, something we actually care about. If the screenwriters could have leveled the male-male bonding with the male-female bonding in this film, they'd really have something.

The result of all this? A silly script with some cool scenes, and very good acting. Damon, whether we like it or not, is a good actor, and is very likable in the lead role, although it's dangerously close to his previous role, Mr. Hunting. Norton is wonderfully sleazy, showing that he's becoming one of the most reliable actors around, and only after a mere four screen performances. In supporting roles, John Turturro is wonderfully controlled as a long-time gambler who's made a career out of being totally careful with his card playing; Martin Landau is really good in a brief role as a judge from Mike's school who helps him get his life straightened out with one speech (although his reasoning in one scene towards the end is weak); and Famke Janssen's sorta just there, although semi-interestingly so, as a woman who works in one of the house of games. Malkovich nicely overacts a bit, with an off-the-wall Russian accent (agressive = ag-ra-i-seeeev) which makes his character all the more intense.

But "Rounders" big weakness seems to be the lack of real atmosphere and devilishness, a big shock since the film is directed by John Dahl, the guy who directed the devilishly entertaining "The Last Seduction," which featured a femme fatale who was never forced to pull her punch. Although the script pulls its punch in the beginning and works its way back again, there's nothing truly fascinating about what goes on when poker is not being played. The melodrama and character development seems more like filler than real character development. The characters, like that of Turturro's and Janssen's, are there to represent some of the elements of poker playing, but are sadly underdeveloped (at least Turturro can act well enough to slighly cover it all up). And the film just never truly convinced me that it was a totally important story to tell in the first place.

However, I did enjoy this film. It worked for me, mainly because there is poker that is played, and it works every now and then as an introduction to that world. There's a scene where all the big rounders are sitting a table in an Atlantic City casino, and Mike's narration tells us all about the suckers who sit down and try to play with the big players. Scenes like this are when "Rounders" truly works, and since this is what pretty much populates the second half of the film, it's almost impossible to not really like this flick.

    MY RATING (out of 4): ***

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/

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