Jim Bennett lives a double life. By day, Mr. Bennett is an English professor at a prestigious University, by night he can't resist the gambling urge, betting large sums of money whenever the chance presents itself. Down a substantial amount of money to the operator of a major gambling ring, Bennett borrows from a very dangerous gangster, offering his own life as collateral. Burning through money like it's nothing, Bennett falls deeper in debt with his various creditors, pitting them against one and other, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse as he attempts to score big, pay off his debts, and if he's lucky, get a second chance. Rupert Wyatt's The Gambler is a well paced, entertaining enough drama that is bound to suffer from comparisons to the James Caan original, a superior film in every way. This version of The Gambler doesn't have the soul of the original, missing the ability to effectively transport the viewer into the psyche of its main protagonist in an effort to understand him. Mark Wahlberg is serviceable but ultimately miscast in the role of Jim Bennett, incredibly hard to buy as an astute English professor, and even harder to root for, as a man who simply comes off as an angry individual with no reason to exist. Much of the film's failures can't simply be blamed on Wahlberg though, as The Gambler's script never even attempts to scratch the surface of these characters. The film doesn't really attempt to understand Jim Bennett's addiction, why he does it, or what it brings to him, opting for a straight-forward finale that left me uninspired. Rupert Wyatt's The Gambler isn't a bad film in its own right, but it's a straight-forward, dumb-downed version of the original.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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