Movies about gamblers are essentially movies about losers–or should be if they want to be accurate–and so this film about two down-and-outers who make a gambling tour of the Mississippi River on their way to a fabled card game in New Orleans at least begins realistically enough.
What Works: Ryan Reynolds plays the “winner” of the pair, and the sociopathic glee in his eyes is a lot more successful than the other side of Reynolds’ coin which is earnest confusion. [He either plays Proposal-type saps or Deadpool-type wise asses, and the latter is a more natural fit for him.] But this is really Ben Mendelsohn’s movie. He’s been on a great streak playing low-lives in movies like “Animal Kingdom” or “Killing Them Softly,” but here he’s playing a basically good guy who just can’t catch a break…even though he would squander one if he caught it.
Mendelsohn takes you inside the mind of a gambling addict, and the essential gambler’s dilemma: that the guy whose nerve would push him to win thousands of dollars (whereas you or I might walk away after winning $20) is the same guy whose nerve would push him to try to win more and lose it all back. Watching Mendelsohn circle the drain betting on cards, horses, slots, and even arbitrary twists of “fate” is all I’ll ever need to keep from wasting a dollar again.
What Doesn’t: The overly rosy ending is dangerous. It may be sending out the exact wrong message: that if you just keep playing, you’ll eventually hit a lucky streak!
Well, that’s not a message anyone watching this movie needs to take away, and I was more than a little surprised the film seems to suggest that a gambling addict can become “full” by finally winning that big bet, when anyone with knowledge knows it’s an appetite that’s always hungry.
What I Would Have Done Differently: There are so many movies about gamblers that have rosy endings (The Cooler, The Gambler remake, this one, 21, Rounders, etc.) that it would now be refreshing to have one that didn’t end that way. I’ve never seen one where the lead was driven out to the desert after owing the wrong bookie or won a huge jackpot that he sat back down at the tables to “double” (i.e. piss away) which is probably how this movie should have ended.