Cheap Rounders (DVD) (Matt Damon, Edward Norton) (John Dahl) Price

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Customer Reviews of Rounders

Mike McDermott (Damon) is a professional poker player and a law school student, in that order. One night, in an attempt to raise the capital for a trip to Las vegas to play in the World Series of Poker, McDermott loses his whole bankroll, $30K, to the owner of his favorite underground card club, Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). The next day, he swears off cards, but we get the feeling he does so in order to keep his relationship with Jo (Gretchen Mol) alive. His resolve is shaken, and quickly detroyed, when his best friend growing up, Worm (Edward Norton), is released from prison, and McDermott soon finds himself back at the table.

This movie succeeds on a number of levels, and surprisingly so. Of course, many of those levels have to do with cards, and if (as I said) you're not enchanted, or at least obsessed, with the non-luck aspects of any game of chance, it'll probably bore you stiff. But even if you're only a weekend (or rarer) player at the card table, the horse track, or the stock market, you'd do well to listen to Damon's voiceovers throughout the movie, which have loads of excellent information (and mirror things I've been telling novice horseplayers for years).

Other than that, the insights into relationships, and the ways obsession can destroy them, are profound. Well, okay, maybe not profound, but handled with gobs more subtlety and wit than I've seen in just about forever. Mol isn't really onstage long enough to give her any real chemistry with Damon, but take it from me, the ways they react to one another throughout the film are dead on. More importantly, both to the plot and to the success of the movie, is the relationship between McDermott and Worm. Edward Norton proves once again he's one of Hollywood's true rising talents, and the deeper motivations that drive his character are exposed just well enough that we can see them. Not an easy task, and one sure to be uncovered if the actor doesn't understand those motivatins and the viewer does.

The other main aspect of the film is the suspense during the actual card games. Another thing that's not easy to pull off, and often (most recently in the Gibson/Foster remake of Maverick) the director resorts to insane, next-to-impossible combinations of cards to make it work. (Remember the final game in Maverick?) In the first scene, when Teddy KGB nails McDermott, the winning hand is a full house. Welcome to the real world of poker, where oftentimes it's the guy holding the two pair that ends up forty grand richer at the end of the night. Dahl realizes, repeatedly, that it's not the cards in the hand that provide the action, it's the way the characters react to one another. One almost thinks that Dahl could have pulled this movie off by putting Damon, Norton, Malkovich (without the cheesy accent), John Turturro, and two or three of the other cardplayers around a table and shot two hours of one game.

Rounders is brilliant..
Let's put this first:Rounders is a movie about poker..But it doesn't mean that those who are not into this game,won't understand it or like it...

Mike (Damon)is a young law student who is also a master poker player..When he loses all of his savings in a game against the poker expert Russian KGB (Malkovich),he thinks he has played his final hand and promises his girlfriend that he will never sit on a game again.Then his long time friend "Worm" (Edward Norton) gets out of prison and Worm is in big trouble with many guys waiting for his release,because he owes a serious amount to them and the creditors' list goes all the way up to KGB..From then on,it's the dilemma of Mike between his promise to his girlfriend,his education as a law student vs. his loyalty to his friend and his great passion for the game of poker.

I should begin by saying that all of the actors involved (maybe except Gretchen Mol who plays Mike's girlfriend) did a wonderful job.Matt Damon is great as the young poker whiz,we can really feel the state of mind he is in during the whole movie,and is also the narrator.His narration is the best bit of the movie in my opinion.Although it seems that it is always about poker,from the first moment you sense that poker is chosen as a metaphor to tell us about life and how we approoach it.

The script is brilliantly written.Altough I didn't know a thing about poker (and especially about Texas Hold'em),there hasn't been a thing I missed thanks to the narration of Mike and the perfection of the storytelling.

Many people have criticized Malkovich's portayal of the Russian card shark but I think that the final re-match between him and Mike was one of the funniest parts among all the movies I have seen.And Edward Norton should also be mentioned because I think he does a great job as the Worm.He made me hate him for all the problems he put Mike in,and that is the sign of an actor doing his job at best.

The DVD lacks extras and that is my biggest complaint..The deleted scenes I have seen from the trailer should have been added.

This is not a blockbuster and it doesn't have any action scenes.It's all about poker but poker is about life in Rounders.I strongly recommend it even if you don't know anything about this card game who is not about luck.

Caveat Emptor...

This is the movie that will make you want to play poker
Ive been playing for about 5 years now and love the game. Ive read many poker books and found this one to be very good. So I would suggest you buy this book and maybe a couple others and get to playing. There's really no excuse anymore - since anyone can access the internet.

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