Vintage

It almost sounds like the American dream kind of story and it would be if it weren’t for the fact gambling can ruin lives and is really nowhere close to as glamorous or as cool as it would seem on the silver screen.

 But damn if ruining your life wasn’t so much damn fun as it is when you catch that ace of spades, knowingly covet that boat you just made, dream of the boat you want to buy, while your entire college tuition is centered neatly in the middle of a green velvet poker table.  Welcome to the world or Rounders.

Rounders, in case you didn’t know, refers to the card sharks that operate in the New York and New Jersey poker playing scene, who make “rounds” from one game to the next.  Oftentimes, they interject themselves into games that are denoted by the profession of the majority of the players hosting it: The Judges game, The Golf Pros game, The Union Workers game, The Municipal Workers game and the list goes on.  Did I mention the Movie Reviewers Game?  Nah, movie reviewers are far too lame for such fun.

Rounders is about a former rounder, Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), who is pulled between a respectable life with his lawyer-to-be girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol) and his loyalty to best friend Les “Worm” Murphy (Edward Norton). Murphy, fresh out of the clink, has a quite a large gambling debt to make good on.  He slowly convinces Mike to use his poker playing skills to help him pay it off, permanently damaging Mike's relationship with Jo and putting both men's lives at risk.

Now lets us make our own rounds about this film. My money says this is a decent movie, not a great one, not one I would bet the pot on, but a good one, we will surely not forgot.  Hell, we give out cards for ratings around here, so you think we would be a little partial to a movie about cards.  But alas, we are if nothing else, fair. 
Matt Damon is Mike McDermott, who has this thing going on where he can’t decide if he wants to pursue a career in law and make his hot girlfriend happy or go with his natural God-given ability to bluff, raise and call like very few in the sleazy underworld of No-limits Texas Hold’em poker.  He has this sense he should fold the law career and bet the house on one as a professional gambler.  He just can’t seem to come to terms with his true love – gambling.      

In my opinion abandoning a career as a potential lawyer and opting to become a degenerate gambler is a step up (can I get a rim shot for the lawyer joke please).  But, hell, even the Judge (Landau), whom he was angling for a clerkship, seems to steer him down the path of a professional gambler.  It is what makes him feel alive, after all. 

Landau as Judge Petrovsky is the nice, grandfatherly Judge who shares with McDermott a reason why he decided to become a Judge and not a Rabbi, despite the apparent ostracism of his Jewish conservative family.  It has something to do with destiny.  Ah, yes, I just found my notes (that is a lie, I don’t keep notes).  Judge Petrovsky’s wisdom goes something like “your destiny chooses you...”  In that sense, he sounds like Obi Wan Kenobi. 

Okay, I will buy that but I am not going to bet the house on this destiny business.    
Ed Norton as the “Worm” is remarkable in this role as he is in many of movies.  He is the guy that nearly makes Damon’s character of McDermott a tragedy.  He is the consummate card mechanic, willing and able to deal off the bottom of deck, looking to win no matter what it takes to do so.  At every turn, he is pulling McDermott down the drain, borrowing money he loses and can’t pay back, mouthing off to Grama (Rispoli), while McDermott is essentially pleading for some leniency from the loan shark.   

The problem is Grama is not such a bad low life piece of shit money collector, who bought the debt from Teddy KGB (Malkovich), the arch nemesis of McDermott, a man connected to the Russian-American mob, who cleans out the pockets of McDermott at the beginning of the flick. 

John Malkovich deserves some mention for his portrayal of Teddy KGB.  Personally, I though he overacted and I thought his Russian accent bordered on satire.  I also thought the “Oreos” he was found of eating at the table, was a little to gimmicky for a Russian Mafioso.  Malkovich is surely a great actor but why couldn’t they drum up a Russian for this part.  Okay, maybe somebody a little more intimidating than Malkovich, because he did not scare me at all.  He even came across a bit effeminate.  Nah, I would have went with Vigo Mortenson, given his portrayal of a Russian Mafiosi in Eastern Promises, but wait that movie came out a lot more recently then when I sat down to review Rounders. 

So, Malkovich it is.  He was good, quirky, but I though the role called for someone a little more intimidating.

Gretchen Mol as Jo was lovely and that is about all to be said of her character.  She was there to add the female element but Rounders is essentially a man’s man flick with little need for the dotting female role nagging the main character to make a higher choice, to play it safe, to think of the family. 

It doesn’t really matter though I would argue that despite the movie not missing a beat if you removed Mol’s Jo, it would remove essentially the only eye candy in the file, other than Famke Janssen as Petra. 

I would have at least had one sex scene between Damon and Janssen, but not my script nor budget. 
There was a scene where Petra was going to play the McDermott card but for reasons I can’t really fathom he choose to let her go away.  This would have been a good scene for the obligatory sex part, but I think Rounders skips this banality completely.

I thought it would have been I interesting if he would have romped with Petra and chosen this new underworld girl as his new thing.  It would have shown some transformation of Damon’s McDermott, perhaps proclaiming all his money is on the table and he chooses the gambler lifestyle 

But let’s look at the overall hand we are dealt here.  Damon was a good choice for McDermott, a man seemingly searching for his true direction in life, which ultimately is gambling.  I know on some level others might say gambling is a sickness, that to glamorize such a profession is akin to making it sound cool to get drunk.  Alas, there is many a man and women who wrecked homes and much more because they couldn’t stop at the Casino. 

There are many that may have got some things broken and worse for failure to pay back a gambling debt.  But, there is a professional aspect to gambling as evidenced by the World Series of Poker on ESPN, which seems to keep McDermott dreaming and which to me at least, seems to legitimize McDermott’s aspirations.  So, it can be a profession.  It can be a debilitating problem, as it is for Worm.  McDermott sees it as a means to making a difference and achieving a dream, which the Judge would seem to agree with.

The movie is not Ace material, but I have no problem dealing it a King.  It is a bit understated, borders on a quasi-noir style, but is overall well-acted, well-directed and at times compelling.  Ultimately Rounder’s is about card players but it is also about the inner journey of one man to discover what the cards have in store for not only his career but his soul.   

Matthew J. DeReno is a managing editor of CoolFilmz living in Pittsburgh.