The Gambler

This would have been much easier to remake if the director had stayed true to the grittiness of the original. It's stripped clean here. From the cinematography, to the acting, the music and more, there is an overall lack of desperation. It's as if everyone making the film has never experienced desperation or addiction of any sort, which I know can't be true. Even the music is inappropriate and sounds like someone randomly picked tunes from their favorite alternative rock radio station. The romantic subplot is mere fluff and also lacks grit from the casting to the photography and inappropriate music making me feel as if I was suddenly watching a romantic comedy. Why did this UCLA beach blonde love interest work in a underground Asian owned casino? Huh? Shouldn't she have been Asian? And what would a young college student even see in this loser? Some choices just made no sense and were out of date, out of context, and simply not the right tone. I would say even Mark Wahlberg was in over his head and the role was not the right fit for him.

The Gambler is a decent movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a great cast. Mark Wahlberg makes some very interesting acting choices in this movie, losing weight for the part and portraying the character in a way that really stretches beyond his usual style. I also loved the chemistry between him and Brie Larson, it was definitely the strongest aspect of the film, in my opinion, as it was pure and felt very real.

The structure to this film is a bit of a mess, we are given a bunch of plot points and different reasons for this character to be in dept. It was clearly trying to overwhelm us with this characters situation, however, it just took me out of it when they began to throw too many things at me at once.

As well as that, we are never given a real reason to like the character of Jim Bennett, he is irresponsible and everything that happens to him is entirely his fault. He may have redeemable qualities, but not enough for me to support him. He does pull through towards the last ten minutes of the movie, but that does not make up for ninety minutes of him being an arrogant, self centred individual.

It has it moments, but there are a lot of movies similar to this that are much better. Good performances, but lacking in originality, The Gambler shines on few occasions, and I would not recommend it.

An obsessive gambler must get his life together to pay off his debts and be with the one he loves.

Best Performance: Mark Wahlberg

"Eventually a debt gets too big to pay." Jim Bennett (Wahlberg) is an English professor at a major college, as well as being a high stakes gambler. He isn't very good at either. When he falls into an insurmountable debt to a ruthless loan shark one life begins to bleed into the other and his life, and the lives of those around him, is in danger. Going in I thought this movie could go 1 of 2 ways. It could either be tense and good, or slow and boring. After watching it I would have to say it is more tense and good, but also nothing amazing. I did like this quite a bit and recommend this, but it just seems like they could have done so much more with this character. Another down side of this movie is that it is pretty much like every other movie about gambling. The best part of this movie is John Goodman, but he is so under used that it is a little upsetting. If he was in it more the movie would have been better. Overall, a movie that I did ultimately like and recommend but it is a little generic and lacking the punch it was going for. I give it a B.

I have read few unfavourable reviews about The Gambler mostly saying the film is not gripping enough. I disagree. At no stage did i lose interest in what was going on and i thought the tension was palpable at times. A really good leading performance from Mark Wahlberg and it's good to see Michael Kenneth Williams ( Omar Little from The Wire ) in a big role. If i had to be picky i would say that the three people who Jim owed money to could have been a little bit more menacing and the ending is a little bit confusing ( or that could just be me ! ). Overall though an entertaining , enjoyable movie which also has a great soundtrack.

I read some reviews here I can see that we have mixed feelings about The Gambler. Some hate it, some love it. I thought it was an okay movie to watch once. I didn't think it was that boring like some want to make us believe. Mark Wahlberg plays a gambler that isn't very passionate about his life anymore. He just searches for somebody to live for, to give him some passion in his boring life. Due to his lack of passion for anything he creates big debts and he doesn't really care about it. Maybe the debt collectors should have been a bit more violent to make the movie more satisfying to some but to me it was okay. Michael Kenneth Williams gave us a good performance as well. John Goodman with a smaller role was also good in his typical way. I found the soundtrack of the movie really good. It just fitted really well with the story and ambiance. Unlike others I wasn't bored at all with this movie. I certainly saw worse movies then this one.