Movie Reviews
Classic Film Review: Damon, Norton, Famke, Turturro and Landau deal the cards — “Rounders” (1998)
The knock on “Rounders” (1998) was always that it was, to quote a review or two at the time of its release, “lazy.”
It’s a genre pic, gamblers’ ups and downs as one (Matt Damon) tries to focus on law school and his law school classmate/girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) and law school mentor (Martin Landau) as his disreputable hustler pal (Edward Norton) drags him back into his favorite vice.
There aren’t a lot of ways for this hand to play out, and director John Dahl (“The Last Seduction,” lots of TV in recent years) and two screenwriters pick the lightest and one could make the case, the lamest.
Damon was young, with a young Hollywood haircut, playing another version of that smart, motormouthed working class knowitall “type” that launched his career in “Good Will Hunting” the year before. So the writers wrote him lots and lots of little “read the player/read the room” monologues, some delivered in the lazy screenwriter’s best friend — voice-over narration.
“I’ve often seen these people, these squares at the table — short-stacked and long odds against them, all their outs gone — one last card in the deck that can help them.
“I used to wonder how they could let themselves get into such bad shape, and how the hell they thought they could turn it around?”
Very Matt Damon speech to make. Very lazy screenwriting to give it to him.
But it’s a GENRE picture. It’s not about the surprises, but the execution, the immersive milieu, the colorful characters. “Rounders” delivers that to perfection. It’s a film that captures a moment in time. And it prefigured the global “Texas Hold’em” poker craze. Hell, even James Bond found himself playing Hold’em and not Bacarat when “Casino Royale” was remade.
I swear I never pass by this film while channel-surfing without stopping to savor Damon, Norton and a long line of colorful supporting players — Chris Messina, Michael Rispoli and Bill Camp before they were famous, Turturro and Oscar winners Damon and Landau, Oscar nominee Norton and future X-woman Famke Janssen.
Damon, a great raconteur and chat show guest (Jimmy Kimmel be damned), has long been telling this hilarious story about working with the odd-accent-slinging John Malkovich, who plays Russian mobster/poker room operator and player Teddy KGB, that’s become a part of the film’s lore.
So there’s a lot to relish in “Rounders,” as it’s become one of those mainstream “cult” films that gets better with age — like “Fight Club.”
The story — Mike McDermott’s a New York law school smarty with a beautiful classmate/live-in girlfriend. He likes to play cards and swim with the sharks, but he keeps that under control for her sake, and to ensure his future.
But when his old running mate Worm (Norton) gets out of prison, Mike finds himself going on a gambling bender to help settle Worm’s gambling debts with Teddy KGB (Malkovich) and the thug called Grama (Rispoli).
Everwhere Mike turns, there’s an old rival/friend (Turturro) who sighs at the lost potential of a player who is great at “reading” the table, the cards and his chief rivals, or a gambling debt collector/barmaid (Janssen) he used to have a thing with. Even the judge (Landau) who is his law school mentor has a “friendly” game of academics and other lawyers that Mike interrupts and “reads” like an old pro.
“You were lookin’ for that third three, but you forgot that Professor Green folded on Fourth Street and now you’re representing that you have it. The DA made his two pair, but he knows they’re no good. Judge Kaplan was trying to squeeze out a diamond flush but he came up short and Mr. Eisen is futilely hoping that his queens are going to stand up. So like I said, the Dean’s bet is $20.”
Worm weasels Mike back into the then-underground world of poker rooms as these “Rounders” — slang for hardcore players — travel from Rahway to Bronxville, Newark to Atlantic City and the bowels of NYC in search of quick cash.
Worm’s a known cheat, but Mike lets him dragshim to the games, winning legit until Worm worms his way onto the same table and starts looking for shortcuts.
That never works out. The movie is about the ballooning nature of Worm’s debt, the beatings and threats to his future Mike endures. Beautiful, rich and about to get richer girlfriend? Law degree?
Norton is in rare, antic form here, showboating about how he doesn’t know Mike when they’ve weaseled into a game with strangers, losing sorely to ensure Mike can win big, taking a bunch of frat boys for a ride, for instance.
“Like my uncle Les used to say “When the money is gone, it’s time to move on”. So enjoy it, you secret handshaking assholes.”
Landau gets to make the big “disappointment to my father” old Jewish judge speech. Mol plays the “It’s me or poker” card as the girlfriend.
“Lazy?” Sure. This movie lays down a straight or a flush, never a straight flush.
But this world is a rare thing, a piece of the “California Split” past before poker and gambling blew-up and ate the early 2000s. We watch gambling movies like that Altman classic and this Dahl classic and “Mississippi Grind” to sample a lifestyle we’d never have the nerve to try. That’s all we really want from this genre.
Hearing Damon recite the script’s poker-professional slang and pro poker player name-dropping might seem “lazy” and heavy-handed. But it’s musical in Damon’s hands. The guy can tell a story.
“Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.”
And there’s no dishonor in critics’ dismissing a film that goes on to become a classic of its genre and a cultural touchstone. Well, maybe a little. But I guess J. Hoberman’s glad to be remembered for something.
Rating: R, violence, drug abuse, profanity
Cast: Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Famke Janssen, Martin Landau, Gretchen Mol, John Turturro, Michael Rispoli, Chris Messina, Bill Camp and John Malkovich
Credits: Directed by John Dahl, scripted by David Levien and Brian Koppelman. A Miramax release on Pluto TV, Amazon, etc.
Running time: 2:01
Desert Warrior, 2026.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, Ghassan Massoud, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, Géza Röhrig, Numan Acar, Nabil Elouahabi, Hakeem Jomah, Ramsey Faragallah, Saïd Boumazoughe, and Soheil Bostani.
SYNOPSIS:
An honorable and mysterious rogue, known as Hanzala, makes himself an enemy of the Emperor Kisra after he helps a fugitive king and princess in the desert.
With aspirations of being a historical epic harkening back to the sword and sandal blockbusters of yesteryear, Rupert Wyatt’s seventeenth-century Arabia tale is about as generic and epically dull as one would expect from a film plainly titled Desert Warrior. Yes, there appear to be real locations here, and there are some admittedly sweeping shots of various tribes storming into battle on horseback and camels, but it’s all in service of a mess that is both miscast and questionable as the work of a filmmaking team of mostly white creatives.
The story of Emperor Kisraa (Ben Kingsley, a distracting presence even with only one or two scenes) rounding up women from other tribes to be his concubines, which inevitably became the catalyst for a revolution led by Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart), uniting all the divided clans and strategizing battle plans for flanking and poisoning, is undeniably ripe for cinematic treatment. The problem is that what’s here from Rupert Wyatt (and screenwriters Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, and David Self) is less than nothing in the primary creative process; no one seems to have a connection to Arabic heritage or culture, but they have made a flat-out boring film that is often narratively incoherent.
Following the death of her father and escaping the clutches of oppression, the honorable Princess Hind joins forces with a troubled, nameless bandit played by Anthony Mackie (he totally belongs here…), who seems to be here solely to give the movie some star power boost without running the risk of white savior accusations. Whatever the case may be, it’s jarring, but not quite as disorienting as how little screen time he has despite being billed as the lead and how little characterization he has. It is, however, equally disorienting as some of the other names that show up along the way.
As for the other factions, Princess Hind talks to them one by one, giving the film an adventure feel that fails to capitalize on using beautiful scenery in striking or visually poignant ways at almost every turn; the leaders of these tribes also often have no character. There also isn’t much of an understanding of why these tribes are at odds with one another. This movie is filled with dialogue that consistently and shockingly amounts to vague nothingness. Nevertheless, each tribe doesn’t take much convincing to begin with, meaning that not only is the film repetitive, but it’s also lifeless when characters are in conversation.
That Desert Warrior does occasionally spring to life, and a bloated 2+ running time is a small miracle. This is typically accomplished through the occasional fight scene between factions that also serves to demonstrate Princess Hind coming into her own as a warrior. When the tribes are united in a massive-scale battle, and that plan is unfolding step by step, one certainly sees why someone would want to tell this story and pull it off with such spectacle. However, this film is as dry as the desert itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
‘4’, the opening track on Richard D James’ (Aphex Twin) self titled 1996 album is a piece of music that beautifully balances the chaotic with the serene, the oppressive and the freeing. It’s a trick that James has pulled off multiple times throughout his career and it is a huge part of what makes him such an iconic and influential artist. Many people have laid the “next Aphex Twin” label on musicians who do things slightly different and when you actually hear their music you realise that, once again, the label is flawed and applied with a lazy attitude. Why mention this? Well, it turns out we’ve been looking for James’ heir apparent in the wrong artform. We’ve so zoned in on music that we’ve not noticed that another Celtic son of Cornwall is rewriting an art form with that highwire balancing act between chaos and beauty. That artist is writer, director and composer Mark Jenkin who over his last two feature films has announced himself as an idiosyncratic voice who is creating his very own language within the world of cinema. Jenkin’s films are often centred around coastal towns or islands and whilst they are experimental or even unsettling, there is always a big heart at the centre of the narrative. A heart that cares about family, tradition, culture, and the pull of ‘home’. Even during the horror of 2022’s brilliant Enys Men you were anchored by the vulnerability and determination of its main protagonist.
This month sees the release of Jenkin’s latest feature film, Rose of Nevada, which is set in a fractured and diminished Cornish coastal town. One day the fishing boat of the film’s title arrives back in harbour after being missing for thirty years. The boat is unoccupied. And frankly that is all the information you are going to get because to discuss any more plot would be unfair on you and disrespectful to Jenkin and the team behind the film. You the viewer should be the one who decides what it is about because thematically there are so many wonderful threads to pull on. This writer’s opinions on what it is about have ranged from a theme of sacrifice for the good of a community to the conflict within when part of you wants to run away from your roots whilst the other half longs to stay and be a lifelong part of its tapestry. Is it about Brexit? Could be. Is it about our own relationships with time and our curation of memory? Could be. Is it about both the positives and negatives of nostalgia? Could be. As a side note, anyone in their mid-40s, like me, who came of age in the 1990s will certainly find moments of warm recognition. Is the film about ghosts and how they haunt families? Could be…I think you get the point.
The elements that make the film so well balanced between chaos and calm are many. It is there in the differing performances between the brilliant two lead actors George MacKay and Callum Turner. It is there in the sound design which fluctuates from being unbearably harsh and metallic, to lulling and warm. It is there in the editing where short, sharp close ups on seemingly unimportant factors are counterbalanced with shots that are held for just that little bit too long. For a film set around the sea, it is apt that it can make you feel like you’re rolling on a stomach churning storm one minute, or a calming low tide the next. Dialogue can be front and centre or blurred and buried under static. One shot is bathed in harsh sunlight whilst the next can be drowned in interior shadows.
Rose of Nevada is Mark Jenkin’s most ambitious film to date yet he has not lost a single iota of innovation, singularity of vision or his gift for telling the most human of stories. It is a film that will tell you different things each time you see it and whilst there are moments that can confuse or beguile, there is so much empathy and love that it can leave you crying tears of emotional understanding. It is chaotic. It is beautiful. It is life……
Rose of Nevada is released on the 24th April.
Mark Jenkin Instagram | Threads
Released through the BFI – Instagram | Facebook
Review by Simon Tucker
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