The Gambler

The Gambler
 

** ½ / ****

Reviewed by Sean Trolinder

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Jessica Lange, Michael K. Williams, Anthony Kelley

 

When one thinks about great gambling movies, there are not many that come to mind. The heights of the genre usually involve pool, so Paul Newman classics like The Hustler or Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money come to mind. When it comes to cards, The Cincinnati Kids and the highly underrated Rounders are landmark and influential films. However, for the few successful films about gambling ever made, there is a long list of failures (21, Lucky You, and the dreadful Runner Runner come to mind). And then, we arrive to the newest addition to the genre, The Gambler, which is actually an adaptation of a forgettable James Caan movie of the same name.

Like in Caan’s film, Mark Wahlberg plays an English professor and he borrows from his mother, but there is something about Wahlberg’s Jim Bennett that is both annoying, yet intriguing at the same time. Bennett is not your normal gambler who lives for the big score. He actually relishes in losing, seems to care about no one else for the first half of the movie, and seems to have a death wish, hoping that the bad men from whom he borrows from will put him out of his misery. Unlike other gambling films, Wahlberg’s Bennett is a loose cannon and even the bad men who demand that he pay up don’t know the proper way to punish him. On one hand, characters like Neville Baraka (played by Michael K. Williams) feel bad for him and desperately want him to care and get on with his life, but another part of Baraka—also known as “The King of Spades”— understands that gambling is a business and will stop at nothing to get his money.

While Jim Bennett’s suicide mission seems to be interesting enough in its own right, since he uses gambling as a means to have others do the deed, what does not quite work is how the audience struggles to understand his motivation for wanting to give up on life. Sure, Jim delivers some excellent one-liners and is a fun character to follow, but is he really someone most people can sympathize with? Is his depression because of how his grandfather, who was wealthy, died at the very beginning? Is it because he is ashamed of his wealth and wants his mother (played by Jessica Lange) to understand this as well? Or is it because he feels unfulfilled professionally, since he wrote a well-reviewed novel, but it never seems to satisfy Bennett knowing that it was not a masterpiece? In one key scene, Bennett discusses Camus’ The Stranger to his class and a basketball player named Lamar Allen (played by newcomer Anthony Kelley) claims that he can’t motivate himself to take the book seriously, since he “knows nothing about suicide.” Fed up with how Bennett’s students don’t take his class seriously and how someone like Lamar, who texts throughout class, is expected to be passed to protect his NCAA eligibility, Bennett goes on a tirade about giving up and what might drive someone to consider killing his/herself. It is an ironic scene, since the film calls attention to Bennett’s main problem, yet it still offers no clear solutions. For a man who essentially gives up on his class, Bennett begins to care about Lamar Allen and a talented student writer names Amy Phillips (played by Brie Larson). In predictable fashion, both Lamar and Amy become important parts in how the debt collectors try to persuade Jim Bennett into paying up.

Though director Rupert Wyatt had great vision in his previous film (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), he seems to just go through the ropes in The Gambler. Every so often, we do get nice shots of the desert and underground casinos, which establishes settings well, but Wyatt does nothing stylistically to elevate The Gambler into something as memorable as The Cincinnati Kid or Rounders. While Mark Wahlberg gives a steady performance, the script does not give a talented up and coming actress like Brie Larson (who was absolutely fantastic in Short Term 12) much to work with. However, the most memorable scenes are Jim Bennett’s moments with Frank (played by the excellent John Goodman), a dangerous loan shark who claims that if Bennett doesn’t pay him off, he’ll “kill off [his] entire family bloodline.” What makes Goodman’s scenes so memorable is the fact he seems to be the one man who gets that Jim Bennett is on a suicide mission, but he recognizes that Bennett’s position as an English professor makes him a smart man, so he tries to use wit to press Bennett into understanding that he is the one man he shouldn’t mess with. In fact, the dialogue between Wahlberg and Goodman is often funny and full of surprises.

Overall, The Gambler is entertaining at points and Wahlberg plays Bennett as well as the script could possibly let him. Also, John Goodman steals every scene he’s in, leaving many to wonder why the actor himself has never quite got his due as one of the best supporting actors around. The ending is a bit cliché and predictable, but it is not completely unsatisfying. With that said, The Gambler will do nothing to advance the genre of gambling thrillers, but it is better than films like 21 and Runner Runner, for sure.

Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher

*** / ****

Reviewed by Sean Trolinder

Directed by Bennett Miller 

Cast: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Michael Hall

 

 

 

          After nearly two years of hype, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher finally made its release. Fresh off Miller’s success with Moneyball, Foxcatcher was targeted as a possible Oscar hopeful in 2013, but rumor had it that Miller’s original cut of the film was nearly four hours long, and in an age when audience’s attention spans wane quickly, it came as no surprise that the film needed several more months of editing before it premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Given the original cut of the film, one has to wonder what was left out at the expense of making the film more accessible to audiences who would be interested in the lives of Olympic wrestling champions Mark and David Schultz and schizophrenic multimillionaire, John du Pont.

            Foxcatcher is anchored by solid acting, since Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, and Mark Ruffalo turned in career best work here. Tatum, who played Mark Schultz, has only been challenged to stretch beyond his pretty boy persona a few times (such as in the film Side Effects), but in Foxcatcher, we see the actor’s ability to show frustration, anxiety, and moments of joy. Early in the film, we see Mark Schultz standing in front of an elementary school auditorium, going through the ropes of discussing how hard work and dedication helped earn him an Olympic gold medal. Tatum plays the scene deadpan, his body often hunched over, in order to articulate that even though Schultz has earned the title of champion, his life is anything but fulfilling. In the very next scene, we see a school clerk cut him a check, but mistakeningly writes his brother’s name, David, down. Glancing down and in a calm tone, Schultz reassures the clerk that he is a Gold medalist, too, but these two scenes do set up the conflict between Mark and David through Tatum’s subtle gestures and forges the plot toward one concerning how Mark wanted to make his own legacy.

            Though Tatum does make for an interesting lead, it really is Carell and Ruffalo’s performances that complicate and elevate the film. As John du Pont, Steve Carell is often unrecognizable, wearing a prosthetic nose and speaking slowly, enunciating parts of his speeches in a way that make him appear as if he were a man trying to uphold the mannerisms of his class. However, Carell’s portrayal as du Pont is filled with complexity, almost making him seem like a sympathetic villain. Within Foxcatcher, much like how Mark Schultz struggles to forge his own success, du Pont tries to escape his mother’s legacy as well. In several scenes, du Pont gives convincing speeches about how he wants to be a patriot and how he yearns to lead men. He attempts to do this by calling himself “Eagle,” naming himself the head coach of the Foxcatcher wresting team (though du Pont barely grasps the basics of the sport to begin with), and promising to fund USA wrestling for $500,000 a year. Audiences can feel du Pont’s pain in a scene where he shows a trophy that he won to his mother, who only cuts him down for winning a prize for an event that he sponsored and ridiculing him for his interest in a lowly sport like wrestling (in contrast, du Pont’s mother supports equestrian). As a result, du Pont then ridicules Mark Schultz as “an ungrateful ape” when Schultz begins to slack off in his training, causing du Pont to recruit David Schultz to help as an assistant coach, foiling Mark’s plans to build his own name.

            The final third of the film showcases Mark Ruffalo’s best acting. Ruffalo is often an actor criticized for not showing over-the-top anger, but in Foxcatcher, where David Schultz plays a coach for most of the film, his meek and quiet demeanor seems entirely appropriate and powerful. In several scenes, David Schultz grapples with trying to win back his brother’s need for his help, trying to figure out what type of psychological abuse du Pont has put his brother through, and resisting the temptation to criticize du Pont publicly as a film crew tries to document the multimillionaire’s ability to coach US wrestling. Ruffalo’s performance is the standout, mainly because audiences can genuinely understand why David Schultz would want for his brother to succeed and to pull him out of the decline that he begins to suffer professionally.

            Though the film is well acted and the cinematography is often beautiful, the film struggles with pacing. Compared to Bennett Miller’s previous two films, Capote and Moneyball, Foxcatcher often has holes in development, which I suspect happened because Miller had to cut so much out. For example, other than du Pont calling Mark Schultz an “ungrateful ape” and recruiting his brother as an assistant coach, it is kind of difficult to understand why Mark completely shuns du Pont, the very act that leads to the film’s dramatic final act. Also, some believe that John du Pont was a homosexual in real life, but the film only makes subtle hints at such a possibility throughout (such as a scene when du Pont practices wrestling with a half asleep Schultz within the du Pont gallery room). It is perhaps this type of conflict that could have been left on the cutting room floor that would clarify Mark’s need to escape du Pont in the last third of the film. Also, Ruffalo is so good that Foxcatcher doesn’t quite find its footing in the middle of the film, so when he finally shows up after being recruited, the dramatic action cranks up.

            Overall, Foxcatcher succeeds in its acting and it would not be a surprise to see Mark Ruffalo and Steve Carell receive Oscar nominations. Also, audiences will appreciate how E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman’s screenplay makes the characters fully human. However, compared to Bennett Miller’s previous work, this film’s pacing could have been better and too many developmental problems exist to truly call it a masterpiece.