Rounders

Plot

Mike (Damon) is a 20 something who attends a prestigious law college. He is a poker prodigy, and has recently lost a great deal of money in a game to Teddy KGB (Malkovich), and decides to quit for good. His best friend Worm (Norton) is released from prison, and quickly gets into trouble with some mobsters. Mike and Worm now must try to come up with $15k in five days to pay off the mob.

Direction

There is a sound direction from John Dahl, but there are few memorable techniques used.

Cast/Characters

Damon was in the start of his peak popularity in this film, but it honestly felt like I was watching Good Will Hunting 2 (not unlike what was done in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). He was too similar in mannerisms and personality to the character it was hard to separate the two. Landau gives a great performance (perhaps underused) as one of Wil… sorry Mike’s professors.

The few female cast members are a little underused too, and poorly written. Mol gets very little to do other than be the ‘angry’ girlfriend, and Janssen is the almost ‘femme fatale’ who is in on Mike and Worm’s game.

The top performance for me goes to Norton as Worm, who seems to be having a blast.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

As far as drama goes, it is a solid narrative – with well written characters. There is a little too much narration for my liking, and the constant exposition could have been revealed more organically.

The ‘college/campus’ settings once again felt a little too similar to Damon’s previous GWF.

I enjoyed the friendship between Mike and Worm, as they had a great rapport between them, and this created some entertaining moments in the film when they pretend not to know each other in order to ‘play’ the other players.

Overall

Not a bad film by any means, and it is a good watch, but some performances were either poorly written, or over acted. Norton for me was the MVP, and made the film. This is a sound film, and is a product of its time, but still is a pass.

3/5