Rounders

Matt Damon is in Good Will Hunting (1997) mode as Mike McDermott, a young aspiring New York lawyer and poker whizz kid who loses all his tuition money to an illegal underground (literally so as it’s held in a basement) game run by a ruthless Russian operator nick-named Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). He promises his fellow-student girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) that he has finished with gambling (which he does not regard as a game of chance but rather skill) and gets a job making deliveries for a “rounder” (John Turturro), a name for a gambler who is content doing the rounds of the games and scoring small wins. But then his best buddy from his younger days, the ill-omened Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison and persuades him to get back in the game as a tag team. But Worm, who is deeply in debt to some bad people just can’t stop himself from “improving” the odds and before long Mike is in big trouble.

Director John Dahl is a noir fan (1993's Red Rock West is my favourite) and so one comes to Rounders  with sizeable expectations. Unfortunately they are never fulfilled. The principal trouble I had and this may not apply to poker players, one of which I am not) is that I never understood how its game of choice Texas Hold’em, the gold standard of poker games, works. This wouldn’t be a problem if as in Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (which was released the following year) the game was simply a catalyst for the ensuing action but in Rounders it occupies a considerable portion of the run-time as the movement from game to game provides the armature along which the film runs. But for one such as I its only real function is to provide opportunities to compromise Mike’s attempts to go straight. 

In this respect the film follows a predictable course. Fortunately Norton makes good use of his ability to switch from good guy to bad and back again with Worm playing Mike like a pack of cards.Their relationship is what makes the film worth watching.

FYI:  Another poker movie, 21 was released the following year but if you’re looking for a serious game try Karel Reisz's The Gambler (1974) and Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (1965).

 

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