Amazon.com video review:
A little drunk on its own arcane exotica as a gambling movie,
Rounders is a film that takes us inside a world of high-stakes card
players
but falls short on such essentials as character development, relationships,
that sort of thing. Still, it is a real curiosity, written by a couple of
guys
(David Levien and Brian Koppelman) who appear to know something about the
dark
underbelly of card hustling for fun and profit. Matt Damon stars as a
reluctant law student who can't put aside his subterranean career of
playing poker and blackjack for big money. After he loses his post-grad
nest
egg to a weird Russian kingpin (John Malkovich)--and also loses his disgusted
girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) in the process--Damon's character turns to an
unreliable old buddy (Edward Norton) for a dangerous game of sharking
wherever
there happens to be a game underway: frat boys, cops, bad dudes, you name
it.
Norton appears to be living out every young actor's fantasy of re-creating
Robert De Niro's prototypical head case in Martin Scorsese's Mean
Streets,
and while his performance is burdened by obvious quotation marks, his
estimable talent still shines through. Damon's charm and intelligence bring
some oomph to the curiously flat proceedings, and while his hushed,
soul-bearing scenes with Martin Landau (as a law professor who takes a shine to
the
kid) seem gratuitous, they're still nice to watch. Behind all this is
director
John Dahl (Red Rock West), who is not exactly at the top of his game
here
but who brings his distinctive toughness to the crime-noir tone. --Tom
Keogh
