The Gambler (2014)

Well Deserved Praise

not horrible nor great

just watch it!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The Gambler is another one of my favorite Los Angeles tales. It centers about a wealthy professor who's gambling addiction gets him deep with the sharks, and he could care less. It's a great vehicle for Mark Wahlberg, as a take away from his straight action movies, to one that is more deep in thought and just outright cool.This is a great watch for movie fans. It's very funny at times, and goes pretty low and deep as well. Very dark movie. It deserves 8 in my book, but I guess 7 works too.7 Stars

You can't accuse me of The-Original-Is-Always-Bettering director Rupert Wyatt's remake of "The Gambler." I've seen Karel Reisz's 1974 original with James Caan but Mark Wahlberg's version doesn't disappointed all on its own. One thing I will say, though, is that Wahlberg is as good as his Oscar-nominated role in The Departed."The Gambler" - Rather than just be a simple thriller against inevitability, however, The Gambler does a great job showing how low Jim is and the allure of addiction that put him there. Toback wrote how his original script spoke to many who were caught in the lifestyle just like he was and if Monahan's version is even half as effective I believe it. There's a palpable danger underlying each frame and not just because of the hardened criminals popping in regularly to flex muscle. When Lange's Roberta returns to buy her son out of trouble one last time you can't help get the wind knocked out of you as a result of her heartbreaking performance. This is the sight of a loved one helpless to do anything when the only solution she can provide is a huge part of the problem.It's crazy to think someone so ill-equipped to be a teacher in The Happening can believably pull it off in The Gambler, but here we are. A lot of it has to do with the type of person the character is because Wahlberg excels at troubled, fast-talking con men like the Jim Bennett behind his nameplate's occupation. It's one thing to be innocently excited about science and bees and a complete other to engage a room of co-eds with straight talk to humanise star tennis player Dexter (Emory Cohen) and basketball prodigy Lamar (Anthony Kelley) while also admitting the world's commodification of them. There's little Gray area for Jim, you either have it or you don't no matter the vocation. Life has always been all or nothing for him, gambling simply dis-tills it to a starker black and white.

Screenwriter and self confessed compulsive gambler James Toback joined William Monahan to concoct this rather bizarre but ultimately fascinating film about a very bright English Literature Associate Professor who is an inveterate gambler. Rupert Wyatt directs this cross between philosophy of life and the dangers of the life of gambling. Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is a risk taker. Both an English professor and a high-stakes gambler, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster (Michael Kenneth Williams) and offers his own life as collateral. Always one step ahead, Bennett pits his creditor against the operator of a gambling ring and leaves his dysfunctional relationship with his wealthy mother (Jessica Lange) in his wake. He plays both sides, immersing himself in an illicit, underground world while garnering the attention of Frank (John Goodman in a superb performance), a loan shark with a paternal interest in Bennett's future. As his relationship with a student (Brie Larson) deepens, Bennett must take the ultimate risk for a second chance.The strange admixture of classroom teaching with students whose views of learning vary from creativity to going pro-basketball (Anthony Kelley) bring out some interesting philosophical comments from Jim the teacher to the underworld of crime and gambling that is complicated by Jim's addiction to the 'sport' ultimately makes for a thought provoking film. There are some fine supporting roles by Andre Braugher, George Kennedy, Alvin Ing, Richard Schiff, but in the end the performances by John Goodman and Mark Wahlberg are the focus of the odd but compelling drama.

I saw The Gambler when it came out in theatres thinking it was an Oscar hopeful movie. After the movie, I came out of it confused on whether that was the intention. I had a hard time believing it was meant as a crowd-pleaser because of how hard it was to get behind Wahlberg's character Jim Bennett. But it was almost too gritty and the development of the characters was too weak to be a Best Picture candidate. So the movie kind of filled this awkward space in between the two. I think this is a movie that will divide audiences. I saw it with one of my best friends and while we weren't too far away on a numerical rating scale, we had almost completely different opinions on the movie. I'll get to why after the synopsis.*Minor Spoilers Ahead* English Professor Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) watches his grandfather die in the hospital. Instead of staying to grieve, he heads right for an illegal casino. He plays blackjack and ends up ahead but because of some stupid betting patterns, he loses all his money. He had even borrowed money on credit from the proprietor of the illegal gambling ring in the amount of $240,000. This doesn't even seem to faze Bennett and when he enters the washroom he takes another loan out from a different loan shark named Neville Baraka (Michael K. Williams). He loses that money too and is given 7 days to pay up his debts.Usually I talk about the plot/story and the dialogue as if it were one thing. I have to note the difference in the Gambler because I found the dialogue to be pretty awesome yet the plot to be kind of lacklustre. With the excellent dialogue, there are scenes in this movie that are amazing to watch. Anytime that Mark Wahlberg is talking to John Goodman or Michael K. Williams, the movie is electric. The overall arc of the plot isn't the greatest though. Sure, the point of Jim Bennett is that he's doing the opposite of what any sane human being would do but some things developed during the movie that were confusing. Did he know what he was doing the whole time or was he just suicidal? Why did Brie Larson's character inspire him to change his ways when he barely knows her at all? The answers to these questions are very murky and it kind of cheapened the ending for me.The other pretty phenomenal aspect of the movie is the acting both from Wahlberg and the supporting cast. Mark Wahlberg gets too much flack as an actor. When you give him good material (The Fighter, The Departed) he shines more often than not. You don't have to like his character to appreciate his performance. I thought both John Goodman and Michael K. Williams gave performances worth of Oscar nominations. In their own separate ways, they are both extremely threatening and menacing. But at the same time, Goodman and Williams are both so in awe of Bennett's complete lack of regard for his own life makes it almost funny. Brie Larson was good but she's not in the movie as much as you would think. She's an excellent actress but she doesn't have the chemistry with Wahlberg to sell their relationship like the movie needs them to. I liked Jessica Lange in her small part as Jim's mother, she helps highlight Jim's contempt for everyone around him.I think how much you like this movie is going to come down to one thing, how much you can identify and understand what Jim is doing. This is a character piece when you boil it down and while I respected Mark Wahlberg's acting, I just couldn't get behind his character. One of the gangsters tells him it's almost like he wants to commit suicide, he just doesn't want to have to do it himself. His decisions when he's gambling make you want to yell at the screen and his complete sense of calm when he's being beaten to a pulp is so frustrating. It's not that I didn't get his feelings at all, I was just left to struggle with why we were supposed to want him to survive instead of his lifestyle catching up to him.Despite this movie being a weird mix of different elements, I enjoyed it more than I didn't. Not every movie going to be the whole package and you have to recognize the bad and the good separate from each other. It's hard not to be angry watching this movie but if you're willing to see the great acting and the good exchanges instead of how ugly this movie can be at times, it's worth a watch.