Kenny Rogers, le joueur

Young buck Billy Montana (Bruce Boxleitner) is on his way to San Francisco to play a big poker tournament and make his name. He's stuck in El Paso train station and joins a local game. When the game gets rough, a stranger comes to his rescue. He challenges the stranger to a game and promptly gets taken to the cleaners. He doesn't realize that his opponent is legendary gambler Brady Hawkes (Kenny Rogers). Brady had received a letter from a son, he didn't know he had, who is begging for help.

This may not be great cinema but it was darn good TV back in the day. Kenny Rogers may not be a great actor but he's functional in limited range. Boxleitner was great TV leading man back in the 80's although Billy is a bit too dumb. All in all, this is a good TV movie.

There is a part inside everyman, a restless yearning for freedom, for adventure, that is squelched by the confines of this modern world. "The Gambler" is a film that reaches deep within the viewer, pulls out this desire, dusts it off and hands it a six-shooter. This movie is almost primal in its intimacy and unflinching in its portal of a broken man, cracked at the edges, trying to grasp to life before it overcomes him.

Kenny Rogers plays Brady Hawkes with an almost effortless, Burt Reynolds-like cool. But behind the charisma lurks demons that threaten to overtake him. I haven't seen Kenny Rogers in any other movie, so I don't know how much is acting and how much is not, but regardless, the performance is brutal.

I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, because the experience of this film is not one to be missed. It will stay with you. After the movie was over, I looked at the box and saw it was only a mere 94 minutes long. It felt like a lifetime had passed.

I guess you could say they gambled on the plot and lost... Haha jokes!!

Kenny Rogers stars in a made-for-tv movie based on his popular song from a year earlier. While the cast is impressive, and Rogers is just fine in his first lead role, the plot is where this thing falls apart, there's just not enough of an entertaining story going on here and the side plots don't fare any better either. Put in a pretty underwhelming bad guy in Clu Gulager who isn't really bad so much as he's just an a-hole and a rather disappointing final act where nothing seems to be resolved and you got a pretty blah watch. However, this was still a ratings succuss when it came out, and CBS cranked out 4 more of these in the mini-series format.

Legendary country singer Kenny Rogers does a creditable job acting in this amiable bit of Western TV movie fluff, inspired by his hit song of the same name. He has a relaxed, pleasing presence as Brady Hawkes, a war veteran and wise, experienced card player who travels by train to come to the aid of his former flame (Christine Belford), and his son (Ronnie Scribner), whom he never knew existed until recently. During the journey, Brady makes the acquaintance of married woman Jennie Reed (Lee Purcell) and easygoing Billy Montana (Bruce Boxleitner), whose ambition and eagerness to hit it big outweigh his common sense. However, they will all prove to be a good team as Brady goes head to head with Rufe Bennett (Clu Gulager), a ruthless town boss who's got the former flame under his thumb.

Don't go into this expecting a lot of depth, or nuance. What 'The Gambler' offers instead is good, straightforward, sentimental entertainment. It has excellent period recreation, nice music by Larry Cansler, and a mix of action, violence, humour, and suspense. The story (devised by Jim Byrnes and Cort Casady) holds absolutely no surprises, but entertains sufficiently, and TV movie veteran Dick Lowry directs with efficiency. The rich cast is the main reason to watch: Boxleitner is quite engaging, Purcell is both lovely and endearing, and Gulager and Harold Gould (as smarmy railroad baron Arthur Stobridge) make for good antagonists. Also appearing are Lance LeGault as a slick professional card player, Noble Willingham as the train conductor, and Bruce M. Fischer as a small town thug. Rogers' then-wife Marianne Gordon plays the small role of Dallas.

This viewer imagines that this material would make for good "comfort food", as it were. It has a refreshing lack of pretension, and never aims to be anything more than what it is.

Seven out of 10.

Kenny Rogers stars as an old-line gambler, and Bruce Boxleitner as a young gambler whom Rogers schools in the ways of getting out alive. It's a TV movie based on Rogers' hit song, and looks to be the sort of show intended to augur in a series. None eventuated; Rogers was more than busy with his music gigs and occasional cameos.

Rogers does a good job, and Boxleitner brings a lot of youthful, nervous energy to his role. Joseph Biroc offers his usual excellent camerawork, with the bare, high peaks of Arizona filmed quite beautifully.