The Card Counter (2021) * *

 

Directed by:  Paul Schrader

Starring:  Oscar Isaac, Tye Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe

The Card Counter could be pitched as Rounders meets The Mauritanian.   We think we are going to watch one movie about a master poker and blackjack player and the world he inhabits.   Not so much.   Instead, The Card Counter is all over the place.   We realize we are better off with the less we know about William Tell (Isaac) who discusses his expertise in voiceover narration about the odds, what to play, how to play, and why roulette has the best odds of any casino game.   ("You win, you walk away.  You lose, you walk away,").  Tell is not a gambling addict.   He knows when to walk away away and when to run, as Kenny Rogers' The Gambler would tell you.   But, he is Haunted By His Past, which involves a stint as a torturer in Abu Gharib being tutored by the sadistic Col. John Gordo.   The colonel loves his work and instills the same passion in Tell, but then Tell is thrown in federal prison when the government starts cracking down on prisoner torture.  Gordo evades prosecution and flourishes as a military contractor.  

The Card Counter makes the mistake of shifting away from the gambling and focuses more on Tell's past.  Truth be told, I couldn't care less about Tell's past or his Guilt.   Oscar Isaac is the most effective of actors when he is required to do less and use body language to express his deep emotions.   Then, the movie saddles him with unnecessary characters such as La Linda (Haddish), who agrees to stake him in poker tournaments and serves as a potential romantic interest, and Cirk (pronounced Kirk...don't ask why his name has to start with a C and thus has to laboriously explain to everyone meeting him that he is Cirk with a C).   Cirk's late father also served with Gordo and Tell, and has revenge on his mind for Gordo.   Do these characters serve as anything other than someone for Tell to talk to on the occasions when he isn't playing cards?   Their extended dialogue scenes lean towards boring.

Schrader has excelled in the past writing and directing movies about people who lead lives of quiet desperation, such as First Reformed, Hardcore, and Scorsese's Taxi Driver (Scorsese executive produces here).   Tell isn't lonely as much as he is alone and let's face it, I think he likes it that way.  But The Card Counter also dovetails in a violent ending which could serve as the first cousin to the endings of the movies listed earlier in the paragraph.   The Card Counter's ending is the same type of release of pent-up anger and frustration, but is it required in this movie?   What we have are two different movies competing for the same screen, and the results are a mish-mosh at best.