Mark Wahlberg - The Gambler: Poker Movie Review

The Gambler was not a success when it came out. At all. Despite a great cast. Despite the director, writer, and source material - Rupert Wyatt, William Monahan and James Caan’s 1974 cult classic. The box office takings were poor, and the reviews tepid.

Which is a shame. Because it’s really quite good, damn the other critics.

The Plot

The movie follows Marky-Mark’s character as he struggles in an existential void for a week. By day he is an unconvincing and frequently cringe-worthy literature professor, while at night he is a degenerate gambler with a death wish.

On the week in question his night-life has saddled him with a number of debts to the kind of people you don’t want to owe, and they are all about to come due.

What follows is an atmospheric movie, driven by long silences punctuated by stylish – if occasionally overblown – dialogue, the best of which is delivered by Michael Kenneth Williams’ deeply sinister loan shark, and by John Goodman, who gets probably the most quotable scene of the movie:

From that point on, the question is: will Marky-Mark learn to walk when the time comes? Will he get to ‘fuck you’?

Uneven and Ambitious

The humor is dry and mostly works, the theme’s are well patterned, and Wahlberg does an excellent line in flippant degenerate, if an unconvincing professor. His performance is prickly and unlikeable, but charismatic enough to keep you engaged.

Where the film excels is in the atmosphere. It has that slow 70s style which I liked so much in Mississippi Grind, and unhealthy lighting in washed out blues and deep shadows, with a soundtrack album full of eerie twangling covers of old jukebox favorites.

There’s no scene where someone explains blackjack, no one calls out the scores. They just take the chips from the losers and give them to the winners. Simple, visual storytelling.

There are also cringe inducing set pieces, mostly in the classroom. Marky-Mark quoting Shakespeare and tackling the burden of genius along with the anti-stratfordians is a risible watch.

Alison Brie is given very little to do, and although she sets up one or two good one liners she’s mostly there to serve as a cypher onto which Marky-Mark can project. What exactly we’re supposed to make of a character who sits by herself while her date plays blackjack all night isn’t entirely clear.

In Short

Overall Wahlberg’s headlong rush towards self-annihilation has the compulsive watchability of a car crash in slow motion. There is also something almost comical in the grim ratcheting up of his increasingly self-destructive behavior that is managed with a very light touch and moments of flippant comedy.

From the reviews I have read, it sounds like if you have seen the original, this movie fails to justify its own existence. For me, who had not seen the James Caan version, I thought it was an excellent if uneven watch.

I would highly recommend.