Rounders (1998)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Rounders (1998) – J. Dahl

You probably don’t need to know much about poker to understand John Dahl’s film, set in the secret world of backroom gambling. It’s pretty simple: you lose and you are in debt with gangsters on your back; you win and you are dreaming of the World Series of Poker.  Matt Damon plays Mike McD who does know a lot about poker – he’s practiced enough to be able to read other players’ tells and to know their hands without seeing them. He’s also studying to be a lawyer, dating Gretchen Mol, and, after a big loss, also trying to quit playing. Edward Norton is Worm, a bad-news friend recently released from prison who would rather cheat his way to a win instead of play straight. This doesn’t bode well for Damon who ends up vouching for him.  Things play out rather predictably, ending with a big showdown against Russian poker ace (and mobster), John Malkovich.  Yet, for all its predictability, it’s an easy watch (although it might be the first Nineties film that felt almost unbearably dated to me).  That said, Dahl plays it far too safe and it’s hard to feel that McD or Worm were ever truly risking anything.