Les Joueurs

"Rounders" is about a straight-flying legal student (Matt Damon) who leaves behind his gambling habits to satisfy his moralistic girlfriend. However when his best friend "Worm" (Edward Norton) is released from jail, the two embark on a cards-journey that leads them from success to misfortune after Worm is caught cheating and the man who caught him (John Malkovich) wants his money back.

Whereas Ben Affleck continues to go downhill after "Good Will Hunting," Matt Damon has striven uphill, taking on daring productions such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "The Bourne Identity" series, and of course "Rounders," which features one of his best performances. Damon has become typecast as some sort of bad actor in the league of Affleck, but he's much better than his pal, and films like this prove it.

Norton is once again superb as one of his characters you love to hate. He's got the character of Worm down pat, and it really elevates the acting (along with Damon) to a level of greatness.

The film is directed and written very well, offering realistic dialog and gritty environments. However the flaws of the movie are its long running time (two hours exactly), which could have been shortened, and probably the fact that its card playing is sometimes a bit alienating to the audience.

That said, this is still a very underrated movie featuring outstanding performances and a unique spin on gambling flicks. Worth watching at least once in a lifetime.

I knew "Rounders" had something to do with gambling, and that Matt Damon stars in it, but not much more. So, when I watched it on DVD I was pleasantly surprised how engaging a film it is.

I am not a gambler, so maybe that is part of why I found it so fascinating. Basic story - Damon's character is a 2nd yr law student in NYC, and a good enough poker player that he has aspirations of entering and winning the million-dollar prize in the world series of poker in Lasvegas. However, Ed Norton plays his good buddy just getting out of prison. Norton's character is also a poker player, but also incorporates cheating because that just helps you make money faster. This approach gets both of them in some pretty hot water, and also deep in debt!!

Damon's character has a S.O. played by Gretchen Mol. Her distaste for gambling puts a great strain on their relationship. Will she stay, or will she move out??

And finally, John Malkovich does a wonderful job as the Russian gambler nicknamed "KGB". John Turturro is perfectly cast as Damon's friend and "street" advisor.

I simply found myself caught up in this story, anticipating the next poker game, wondering if they would all get whacked, or survive. Plus, Matt Damon has such a relaxed acting style, with that great smile of his, which makes all of his movies easy to watch.

I rate this one 8 of 10 for the well-done gambling drama depicted here.

Rounders (1998)

A charming idea, almost romanticized: if you are young, clever, good looking, and savvy at playing poker you can be ultra cool and maybe even wealthy. That makes for a pretty good movie, if not a very accurate reality. It isn't quite enough to keep two hours going, however, and so the big picture here is to enjoy what it has.

A quick comparison might be made to "The Hustler" and related pool shark movies. And like that classic, "Rounders" is about charming deceit. Matt Damon is the main man here, an ex-poker champ who has "gone straight" until his former partner in crime, Ed Norton, gets out of jail and ropes him back into the thrills and malevolence. Like the pool movies, and like the glitzier and more ambitious "Oceans" movies, personalities matter most. The setting, the glint of money, and most of all the plots matter less than you'd think.

So everything is pretty good along those lines, partly because Damon is fun to be with and Norton is simply terrific. An embarrassing appearance in the beginning and end of the movie by an overacting John Malkovich gets in the way of Damon's performance, however. And the general attempt at creating a bunch of bad guys behind the scenes is filled with thin clichés and mediocre acting.

This is the result of having to make more of the story that was ever there. The main idea--that the two leads get into money trouble and have to earn a ton of cash in a few days of wild poker games--is eventually actually a bit of a bore. The gamesmanship is always interesting, of course, but the impetus behind it grows old. The addition of Martin Landau as a Jewish lawyer who gives Damon a mitzvah as a kind of honor paid to continue a favor once given him is a touching part of the larger plot, making you wish there was more of this somehow, more of something genuine and a bit different.

It might not have helped that I recently saw "Croupier" with a young Clive Owen as a poker dealer, because that movie, whatever its simplicity and other limitations, actually made the poker scenes more real for me. In fact, one problem with "Rounders" is you never get to actually sense the betting itself, and the cards--the playing and the strategies of playing--are glossed over with some tossing of chips and flipping of cards, all in a vague muddle.

I did enjoy watching overall, but it left me a little disappointed and restless.

Mike is a law student who is also a skilled poker player. However when he loses everything to Russian player KGB he promises his girlfriend that he'll quit playing. However a year later Mike's friend Worm comes out of prison and immediately entices Mike into an easy game. Worm still has outstanding debts and Mike is drawn back into this world in order to help him win enough to pay them off.

I taped this off TV with no real hope for it. I knew it hadn't done well at the cinema and that it wasn't exactly a well known film – so I assumed it must be pretty poor. However I was sold on it by the end and, although it's not brillant, it's good enough to watch at least once. The plot is pretty simple but the characters make it watchable and the poker action is good. How many of us long to be Mike – to be able to read a table like that etc? The poker scenes may not all have excitement (you know who'll win) but they are interesting to watch.

Damon caused me pause to doubt when he first came on the screen. I just saw him in `Bourne Identity' and here he looks very young compared to that. However once I got past his baby face I accepted him although someone else might have been better. Norton is great as always and very watchable. Good support comes from an understated Turturro, Janssen, Landau and a slightly hammy Malkovich. However they all do well given that they all drive the thin plot and make the film watchable.

Overall it's not a great piece of work but it does have some really good performances and it works well as a drama with knobs on. I wouldn't buy it but I'll watch it again if I see it on TV.

I have no idea if this movie is at all realistic (certainly so many people inhabiting this strata of the poker world can be so good looking), but at least it has the ring of verisimilitude. Not only does it show us the workings of a somewhat exotic (to me, anyway) part of the world, but it manages to do this stylishly while treating us to an interesting character study and a clever plot.

The story is about a young "rounder" who is trying to go straight by going to law school (although our first glimpse of him shows him losing all his money in a high-stakes poker game with a Russian gangster). He quits gambling for a while until a old friend (played by Norton) returns to his life and lands him in deep trouble. What I especially like about the movie is that is starts off as if this plot line is the main subject, when in fact the movie is about this person learning important things about himself. And there is a lot of information about poker...

Damon is especially impressive among a uniformly good cast.