Kenny Rogers as The Gambler

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.

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 never expected a movie based on a song to be a masterpiece in cinema. The "made for TV category" suits this movie just fine. For a movie that aired on network television, this film is quite good. You have two stories intertwined: Brady Hawkes meeting his son and the history there and Brady's great skill as a fair and honest poker player. Billy Montana seemed a little to pretty to pass as a cowboy in the wild west, but the character's charm makes up for it. I was expecting the Jennie Reed character to be fleshed out a little more and maybe some more interaction between Brady and his son Jerimiah. For what the film is, it works well and is an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.

"The Gambler" is a made-for-TV Western-movie, directed by Dick Lowry in 1980.

Basic plot: Brady Hawkes (played by Kenny Rogers) is a famous poker player everybody wants to play against. On his trip to New Orleans, he gets to know about his son, who asks him in a letter to help him and his mother. Together with Billy Montana (played by Bruce Boxleitner), an avid poker gamer and a gunman, they are on the way to Hawkes' own problems; including an old enemy of Hawkes sending three assassins against him...

I just finished watching this on VHS before writing this review, this because I actually enjoyed this Western-movie. The storytelling was good, and music artist Kenny Rogers does a great performance as the famous gambler who does things with honesty. Bruce Boxleitner also does a great job as a gambler, but also a gunman.

The old VHS edition I have was released in Norway by former video distributor VIP Scandinavia AS/MDC Video during the 80s, and was rated 16. According the the video cover, this film was the most popular feature being shown on TV in USA in 1980.

For a conclusion, I wish to recommend anybody who enjoys TV-movies or Westerns to watch this movie at least once. My overall rating: 9/10.