Rounders [Blu-ray]

Director: John Dahl John Dahl

Overview

John Dahl directed this exploration of New York private clubs devoted to high-stakes poker, with first-person narration from the film's central figure, law student Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), who loses his entire savings to Russian club owner Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). Mike then turns away from cards, devoting his attentions to his law studies and his live-in girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol), who's concerned when Mike's former gambling buddy Worm (Edward Norton) is released from prison. She has good reason to worry, since it takes Worm only a matter of minutes to draw Mike back into poker action. When she learns Mike has returned to the poker clubs, she moves out, and Mike begins to lose interest in his studies. Worm has a pre-prison debt, and the threatening Grama (Michael Rispoli) wants the money. Mike not only indulges the irresponsible Worm, he gets involved in Worm's debts. When Grama demands $15,000 on a five-day deadline, the two buddies go into high gear with a non-stop, no-sleep gambling binge that spirals downward toward an ultimate confrontation with Teddy KGB. Darkened club interiors and New York nights are captured by the cinematography of Jean Yves Escoffier, who moved from French films (the 1991 Les Amants du Pont Neuf) to American movies with the reflective surfaces of Excess Baggage (1997) and the patina of pathos found in Harmony Korine's experimental Gummo (1997). Shown at the 1998 Venice Film Festival and the 1998 Montreal Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/23/2021
UPC:	0032429352026
Original Release:	1998
Rating:	R
Source:	Miramax
Language:	English
Time:	2:00:00
Sales rank:	15,873

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Edward Norton	Lester `Worm' Murphy
Matt Damon	Mike McDermott
Gretchen Mol	Jo
John Turturro	Joey Knish
Famke Janssen	Petra
John Malkovich	KGB
Martin Landau	Professor Petrovsky
Michael Rispoli	Granma
Melina Kanakaredes	Barbara
Josh Mostel	Zagosh
Lenny Clarke	Savino
Tom Aldredge	Judge Marinacci
Vernon E. Jordan Jr.	Judge McKinnon
Paul Cicero	Russian Thug
Ray Iannicelli	Kenny
Merwin Goldsmith	Sy
Sonny Zito	Tony
Mal Z. Lawrence	Irving
Peter Yoshida	Henry Lin
Jay Boryea	Russian Thug No. 2
Lenny Venito	Moogie
Richard Mawe	Professor Eisen
Michael Lombard	D.A. Shields
Beeson Carroll	Judge Kaplan
Matthew Yavne	Professor Green
Erik LaRay Harvey	Roy
Dominic Marcus	Dowling
Brian Anthony Wilson	Derald
George Kmeck	Prison Guard
Joe Parisi	Property Guard
Kohl Sudduth	Wagner
Charlie Matthes	Birch
Hank Jacobs	Steiny
Chris Messina	Higgins
Michael Ryan Segal	Griggs
Kerry O'Malley	Kelly
Slava Schoot	Roman
Goran Visnjic	Maurice
Michele Zanes	Taj Dealer
Allan Havey	Guberman
Joe Vega	Freddy Face
Neal Hemphill	Claude
John C. Chan	Johnny Chan
Lisa Gorlitsky	Sherry
John DiBenedetto	LaRossa
Nicole Brier	Sunshine
Bill Camp	Eisenberg
Tony Hoty	Taki
Mario Mendoza	Zizzo
Joe Zaloom	Cronos
Sal Richards	Johnny Gold
John Gallagher	Bartender
Adam LeFevre	Sean Frye
P.J. Brown	Vitter
David Zayas	Osborne
Michael Arkin	Bear
Murphy Guyer	Detweiler
Alan Davidson	Cabbie
Chris Young	Actor,Composer

Technical Credits

David Levien

Brian Koppelman

John Dahl	Director
David Levien	Screenwriter
Brian Koppelman	Screenwriter
Ted Demme	Producer
Joel Stillman	Producer
Bobby Cohen	Executive Producer,Producer
Jery Hewitt	Stunts
Avy Kaufman	Casting
Kerry Orent	Executive Producer,Producer
Harvey Weinstein	Executive Producer,Executive Producer,Producer,Producer
Joel Stillerman	Producer
Mark Weingarten	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Mike is apologizing to his law school girlfriend for how he ended their relationship. She says, "Call me if you need a lawyer." Mike responds, "I will. And I will." That response neatly encapsulates the best aspect of Rounders, a film that takes a clear look at the type of person who becomes involved in the world of high stakes gambling. Matt Damon, playing against the type he had created a year earlier with his work in Good Will Hunting and The Rainmaker, embodies Mike's self-destructive tendencies while simultaneously revealing a self-awareness. He knows he will mess up, hence the wonderful goodbye line to Jo. Mike's best friend Worm is everything Mike would be without his self-awareness. Hunted, desperate, and selfish, Edward Norton's performance evokes Robert De Niro's Johnny Boy in Mean Streets, but not so much so that it is distracting. It is as if Worm saw Mean Streets as a child and decided he had found his role model. Like Dahl's previous film, The Last Seduction, Rounders is a character study, but unlike that film it is a character study that feels like real life. Where Bridgett in The Last Seduction was a love letter to every femme fatale in film history, Mike in Rounders feels like a guy that one might actually know. In addition to the clear-eyed look at the gambling life, Rounders boasts superb supporting performances by Martin Landau, John Turturro, and John Malkovich (who employs an outrageous Boris Badinoff accent that shouldn't work but does). Dahl, with the help of his performers and a solid screenplay, creates an entertaining modern noir.