"Rounders" by John Dahl: a review

The movie Rounders portrays an epic yet more modern twist on the classic gambling movie. Directed by John Dahl, this film gained great acclaim after its release in 1998. In Rounders, Matt Damon stars as Mike McDermott, a self proclaimed gambler with a love for cards. The main story involves Mike striving desperately to manage his new life as a respectable law student with girlfriend Jo, (Gretchen Mol), while at the same time trying to avoid falling back into the corrupted world of gambling. However, after losing $30,000 playing a game of Texas Hold’em up with Russian mobster Teddy ‘KGB’, (John Malkovich), and promising his girlfriend Jo that he will not return to gambling on card games, Mike is effectively drawn back into the world of poker by his friend ‘Worm’ (Edward Norton), who needs his help to pay off a substantial debt of $15,000.

Although Mike is aware of the promise he made to his girlfriend Jo, and his study commitments, he is also torn over his responsibility to his friend. Cards are probably Mike’s biggest passion in life, and as you might imagine, it doesn’t take much persuasion on Worm’s part to lure him back into his old habits. To the dismay of his girlfriend, Mike is eventually forced to play a head to head poker game with his arch rival Teddy ‘KGB’ to resolve the debt. The poker games in Rounders are filmed magnificently, and there is a real air of tension and unease between the characters which makes for some brilliant scenes. The final poker match sees both Mike and Teddy ‘KGB’ staking huge sums of money on their hands.

John Dahl’s script is seemingly flawless, and ensures the viewer a level of appreciation for the addictiveness and social ties that can become explicit and intertwined by those who gamble high stakes on poker games. Damon really manages to add a persuasive and slick edge to this movie, and by casting Damon alongside Malkovich, Rounders also gains a level of humour which is often lacking in most movies of this genre. Of course Gretchen Mol plays her part as Mike’s girlfriend very convincingly, and provides an outsiders perspective on the social downsides of this addiction. If you are into poker and gambling then this movie will really make you feel as though you are in the thick of the action.

During its first week of opening, Rounders managed to bring in 8.5 million dollars, and overall, Rounders made 22.9 million dollars domestically. While many gambling films have quite a bleak outlook and focus on the unpleasant aspects of the addiction, Rounders probably proved successful because it flipped this focus on its head. Rounders follows the old premise of the underdog movie where the hero faces ultimate disaster and then, at the last minute, manages to resolve all his problems by taking the greatest risk of all. However, without Matt Damon playing the role of Mike, this film might have lost the drive that John Dahl so obviously wanted his hero to portray. John Malkovich also deserves a significant ovation for his role as Teddy ‘KGB’. Together Damon and Malkovich really give this film that edge which has so obviously made Rounders the cult classic it is today.

Although in terms of its gross intake, Rounders was not considered the most lucrative film release, over the past ten years, Rounders has gained a significant following. The fan base on the Internet is just staggering. While many movies have been produced that portray poker, Rounders is triumphant in the fact it manages to provide the viewer with a real sense of the tension and vigour that each player puts into the game. For most fans, Rounders is often referred to as the greatest poker movie of all time. It has a quirkiness and slick edge to it that truly makes it stand head and shoulders above most other gambling movies that have been released. John Dahl’s script for Rounders really does inspire a real feeling for the game. Even if you are not a big gambler you will find Rounders to be quite enthralling and exquisitely executed from start to finish. Rounders is an exceptional masterpiece, and will probably remain one of the most highly rated poker movies of all time, for many years to come.

“Rounders” fortunately had these two most important ingredients to make it a hit, the best characters and the best plot. And these two ingredients categorize the viewers into two, those who are after the plot and those who are after the casts.

Generally, “Rounders” is not for the thrill-seekers who love banging explosions and graphic violence. There’s no adventure per se watching them flick the cards. However, it’s a film not void of suspense. You just have to intently watch it and stay on your seat to appreciate the underlying circumstances that trigger the suspense. The emotions on these movies are subtle but still can be felt as minutes of viewing pass by. “Rounders” is not a cowboy movie garnished with gambling scenes. It’s a brilliant film which doesn’t only shows how poker is being played underground but also the way how players deal with personal issues on their lives which are being brought upon by just simply being hooked with poker-playing.