The Card Counter (2021)
Country: US/GB/CHI
Technical: col/1.66:1 111m
Director: Paul Schrader
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe
Synopsis:
An ex-soldier, incarcerated for participating in abuses at Abu Ghraib, emerges a successful low level card player. Though haunted by guilt he has put his experiences behind him, until he runs into the son of a former colleague out to avenge himself on his dad's CO.
Review:
Another portrait of a solitary, dysfunctional male figure (he wraps the furniture of his motel room in white linen); another tale of redemption through a crucible of violence. Possibly Schrader's best work in years, certainly since The Walker (2007), this is a rare gambling film that takes the trouble to explain the games the characters play, although arguably it is not about that at all. The curiously monikered William Tell (freedom fighter or apple marksman?) sustains a reasonably prosperous, neatly ordered existence as one of the gambling world's bottom feeders, contenting himself with modest wins. La Linda and Cirk (with a 'c') are both potentially dangerous distractions from this, and both invite emotional investment, a return to 'society' and 'forgiveness'. At the same time he acknowledges that the weight of past deeds can never be removed (Schrader's Calvinism coming through), and we believe him. Is then the denouement truly cathartic, or has he fallen into the pit, perhaps for good? The long-held final image suggests otherwise, in its wry evocation of Michelangelo's ceiling, making the film one of the director's more optimistic creations, albeit - possibly - flawed.
Country: US/GB/CHI
Technical: col/1.66:1 111m
Director: Paul Schrader
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe
Synopsis:
An ex-soldier, incarcerated for participating in abuses at Abu Ghraib, emerges a successful low level card player. Though haunted by guilt he has put his experiences behind him, until he runs into the son of a former colleague out to avenge himself on his dad's CO.
Review:
Another portrait of a solitary, dysfunctional male figure (he wraps the furniture of his motel room in white linen); another tale of redemption through a crucible of violence. Possibly Schrader's best work in years, certainly since The Walker (2007), this is a rare gambling film that takes the trouble to explain the games the characters play, although arguably it is not about that at all. The curiously monikered William Tell (freedom fighter or apple marksman?) sustains a reasonably prosperous, neatly ordered existence as one of the gambling world's bottom feeders, contenting himself with modest wins. La Linda and Cirk (with a 'c') are both potentially dangerous distractions from this, and both invite emotional investment, a return to 'society' and 'forgiveness'. At the same time he acknowledges that the weight of past deeds can never be removed (Schrader's Calvinism coming through), and we believe him. Is then the denouement truly cathartic, or has he fallen into the pit, perhaps for good? The long-held final image suggests otherwise, in its wry evocation of Michelangelo's ceiling, making the film one of the director's more optimistic creations, albeit - possibly - flawed.
Country: US/GB/CHI
Technical: col/1.66:1 111m
Director: Paul Schrader
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe
Synopsis:
An ex-soldier, incarcerated for participating in abuses at Abu Ghraib, emerges a successful low level card player. Though haunted by guilt he has put his experiences behind him, until he runs into the son of a former colleague out to avenge himself on his dad's CO.
Review:
Another portrait of a solitary, dysfunctional male figure (he wraps the furniture of his motel room in white linen); another tale of redemption through a crucible of violence. Possibly Schrader's best work in years, certainly since The Walker (2007), this is a rare gambling film that takes the trouble to explain the games the characters play, although arguably it is not about that at all. The curiously monikered William Tell (freedom fighter or apple marksman?) sustains a reasonably prosperous, neatly ordered existence as one of the gambling world's bottom feeders, contenting himself with modest wins. La Linda and Cirk (with a 'c') are both potentially dangerous distractions from this, and both invite emotional investment, a return to 'society' and 'forgiveness'. At the same time he acknowledges that the weight of past deeds can never be removed (Schrader's Calvinism coming through), and we believe him. Is then the denouement truly cathartic, or has he fallen into the pit, perhaps for good? The long-held final image suggests otherwise, in its wry evocation of Michelangelo's ceiling, making the film one of the director's more optimistic creations, albeit - possibly - flawed.