The Gambler

Starring:James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton, Morris Carnovsky, Jacqueline Brookes, Burt Young, Carmine Caridi, Vic Tayback, Steven Keats, London Lee, M. Emmet Walsh, James Woods, Carl W. Crudup, Allan Rich, Stuart Margolin, Ric Mancini, Joel Wolfe, Raymond Serra, William Andrews (II), Joseph Attles
Director: Karel Reisz
Studio: Paramount
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

A little drunk on its own arcane exotica as a gambling movie, Rounders is a film that takes us inside a world of high-stakes card players but falls short on such essentials as character development, relationships, that sort of thing. Still, it is a real curiosity, written by a couple of guys (David Levien and Brian Koppelman) who appear to know something about the dark underbelly of card hustling for fun and profit. Matt Damon stars as a reluctant law student who can't put aside his subterranean career of playing poker and blackjack for big money. After he loses his post-grad nest egg to a weird Russian kingpin (John Malkovich)--and also loses his disgusted girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) in the process--Damon's character turns to an unreliable old buddy (Edward Norton) for a dangerous game of sharking wherever there happens to be a game underway: frat boys, cops, bad dudes, you name it. Norton appears to be living out every young actor's fantasy of re-creating Robert De Niro's prototypical head case in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and while his performance is burdened by obvious quotation marks, his estimable talent still shines through. Damon's charm and intelligence bring some oomph to the curiously flat proceedings, and while his hushed, soul-bearing scenes with Martin Landau (as a law professor who takes a shine to the kid) seem gratuitous, they're still nice to watch. Behind all this is director John Dahl (Red Rock West), who is not exactly at the top of his game here but who brings his distinctive toughness to the crime-noir tone. --Tom Keogh

Description

Academy Award(R) winner Matt Damon (GOOD WILL HUNTING, Best Original Screenplay, 1997; THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) and Edward Norton (THE ITALIAN JOB) star in this story of passion, risk, and the extreme price of friendship! After losing a high-stakes card game, Mike (Damon) gives up gambling for law school and a fresh start with his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol -- CRADLE WILL ROCK). But then his best buddy (Norton) gets out of prison and in over his head with a ruthless card shark (John Malkovich -- BEING JOHN MALKOVICH). From there, Mike's strong sense of loyalty -- and the lure of the game -- draw him back to the tables in a game he cannot afford to lose! Also starring John Turturro (O BROTHER, WHERE ARE THOU?) and Oscar(R) winner Martin Landau (ED WOOD, Best Supporting Actor, 1994).

Customer Reviews:

It takes stones to steer clear of trouble andd wrong choices - Turturro.......2007-05-25

ROUNDERS (1998), with an exceptionally well chosen cast (John
Turturro, Ed Norton, Matt Damon, Martin Landay, and John Malkvich) is
a movie that will appeal to those above 25 / 30, considering the
strong mental and rational aspects that the movie emphasizes, coupled
with other human aspects that everyone will relate to, nonetheless.

If you believe that full stars should never be awarded to a story
that has a happy ending, (guy gets the girl and the money), then you
will understand how this movie is a remarkable achievement, yet not
the best I've seen, due to the Hollywood policy of avoiding tragic
endings, steering clear of despair, suffering from gambling
addiction or otherwise, due to entertainment reasons.

The acting is splendid and beyond reproach, from all actors, by
exposing the subculture of gambling as a hobby and as a social
networking and human release tool. It also exposes those players who,
naturally, take advantage and profit insidiously from the humanity
and compelling addition that exists in the weaker players at the
tables.

As such, the story is a somewhat of a microcosm of what goes on in
the financial markets, the greed and fear emotions that go back and
forth among the traders, the majority of whom lose as much as they
gain from the game, in the long run, not knowing when to stop or how
much is enough.

With a pleasing widescreen release, and sharp, professional
technique, and perfect transfer to DVD, the story underlines the
importance of one's reputation and ability to socially network to be
able to get a seat at the tables where the action occurs. It also
brings up the banking aspects, and loan sharks charging "juice", and
of collectors who are called on to act on difficult debts, the
pariah mechanics, the special visual reading skills needed to be
successful in beating opponents.

Perhaps unnoticed, is the aspect of the movie, that contrasts and
compares the various protagonists character, who they really are,
their destinies, how they found their niche, by choosing settings at
peep shows, or libraries of wealthy reputable judges, lawyers, at
police officers messes, intermixed with convicts, gambling addicted
people of all kinds, including innocent tourists to Las Vegas, etc.

Catchy one-liner: "It takes stones to steer clear of trouble and the
wrong choices" ... yet overall, the movie suggests to viewers that
those making no choices, stopped in the middle of the road of life,
still get run over.

A Great Gambling Movie.......2007-05-14

Matt Damon and Edward Norton team up in this Gambling drama about two men who love to play cards. Both men live different lives, and conflicts arise but in the end one thing is never forgotten; How good these guys actually are at what they do.

rounders.......2007-05-10

this is a wonderful story about two guys who cheat at everything. A few ups and a lot of downs. hustlers to the enth degree. very entertaining

Poker Players Only?.......2007-03-25

There seems to be mixed reviews about this movie. One either likes it or has very little if any response. I'm a poker player and I loved the story and the cast is excellent. If you like poker as well as suspense, I believe this film will be very satisfying to you. If you don't fit that description, it's still worth a look.

DVD Review.......2007-02-01

Quick delivery, quality picture, good price. What more can you ask for?

Average customer rating:

classic gambling DVD
Really Funny
Great film!
Dry Funny, a Classic Brooks
A movie that loves you

Lost in America
Starring: Candy Ann Brown , Michael Cornelison , John Di Fusco , Sylvia Farrel , and Pat Garrison
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000056WRF
Release Date: 2001-04-03

Amazon.com

It seems to lack something on first viewing--where's the third act, anyway?--but Albert Brooks's Lost in America is one of those movies that people keep quoting to each other long after they've seen it. And no one has come up with a more incisive look at the phenomenon of the '80s yuppie, a figure toward whom Brooks manages to aim both his satire and his sympathy. The bushy-haired, tightly-wound actor plays a well-paid L.A. executive who quits his job in a fit of pique when he fails to land a promotion. Armed with their savings, he and the wife (Julie Hagerty) buy a Winnebago and hit the road; they're going to search for America and find themselves. Right. They get as far as Las Vegas, where Hagerty has a little problem at the gaming tables. Brooks's rant on the concept of "the nest-egg" goes right into the comedy hall of fame, and his scene with a casino manager (Garry Marshall, underplaying beautifully) is a masterpiece of wheedling desperation. Somehow amidst the comedy, Brooks captures the panic beneath the upwardly-mobile go-go American guy, circa 1985. The open road will never be the same. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews:

classic gambling DVD.......2007-05-19

Received fast and love the story. A good gift for any compulsive gambler.

Really Funny.......2007-05-08

This movie is laugh out loud funny. The basic plot is that the Albert Brooks character decides to drop out of the rat race with his wife, perfectly played by Julie Haggerty. They liquidate their assets, invest in a Winnebago and plan to live the rest of their lives on the road w/ the cash that they've received in liquidation. To get the adventure started, they make an ill-advised trip through Las Vegas and their plans are soon altered. Cathartic and hilarious. Definitely worth seeing

Great film!.......2007-03-27

A real winner with my whole family! Very funny, I highly recommend. If you enjoy comedies, this is a movie for you.

Dry Funny, a Classic Brooks.......2007-03-02

Brooks pen-ultimate comic masterpiece of materialism gone wild. Las Vegas scenes are second to none. Brooks has not yet repeated the charm, dark humor and downright satire of this one.

A movie that loves you.......2007-02-22

"To those few that have the courage to drop out and find themselves, may God be with you and take you through Utah, avoiding Nevada completely"

If a part of you wants to find your real self while other parts cling to old patterns, you will find compassion in this film.

The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw

Average customer rating:

All the old timers
kenny

The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw
Starring: Claude Akins , Tammy Amerson , Dion Anderson , Peter Antico , and Gene Barry
Director: Dick Lowry
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
ProductGroup: DVD
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Is There Life Out There?
The Gambler: The Adventure Continues

ASIN: B0002VENTG
Release Date: 2004-10-05

Customer Reviews:

All the old timers.......2007-02-18

Though a long story, it was fun seeing so many of the TV western characters portrayed by the original cast members, namely Chuck Connors, Hugh O'Brien, Gene Barry, Jack Kelly, Doug McClure, to name a few.

kenny.......2007-01-11

I am not a Kenny Rogers fan but my husband is so I bought this one. He is a very good singer but not a good actor in my opinion. I gave him 2 stars for my husband.

Average customer rating:

It takes stones to steer clear of trouble andd wrong choices - Turturro
A Great Gambling Movie
rounders
Poker Players Only?
DVD Review

Rounders
Starring: Matt Damon , Edward Norton , John Turturro , Paul Cicero , and Gretchen Mol
Director: John Dahl
Manufacturer: Miramax
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ASIN: 6305268789
Release Date: 1999-02-09

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

It takes stones to steer clear of trouble andd wrong choices - Turturro.......2007-05-25

A Great Gambling Movie.......2007-05-14

rounders.......2007-05-10

this is a wonderful story about two guys who cheat at everything. A few ups and a lot of downs. hustlers to the enth degree. very entertaining

Poker Players Only?.......2007-03-25

DVD Review.......2007-02-01

Quick delivery, quality picture, good price. What more can you ask for?

Kenny Rogers: Legend of the Gambler (3 Full-Length Movies: The Gambler, The Adventure Continues, & The Legend Continues) + Bonus: Kenny Rogers Collectors Edition Playing Cards!

Average customer rating:

Kenny Rogers: Legend of the Gambler (3 Full-Length Movies: The Gambler, The Adventure Continues, & The Legend Continues) + Bonus: Kenny Rogers Collectors Edition Playing Cards!
Starring: Kenny Rogers
Manufacturer: Time Life Records
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw
The Gambler V - Playing for Keeps / The Gambler Returns
Gambler V: Playing for Keeps
The Gambler
Rio Diablo

ASIN: B000EW8L50
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Product Description

3 DVD set includes The Gambler, The Gambler:The Adventure Continues and The Gambler: The Legend Continues

Average customer rating:

See this overlooked gem...
Very good Hoffman performance.
Predictable
Phyllip Seymour Hoffman's Best Performance
A Class Act~

Owning Mahowny
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman , Minnie Driver , John Hurt , Maury Chaykin , and Ian Tracey
Director: Richard Kwietniowski
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
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ASIN: B0000BXMZ8
Release Date: 2003-10-14

Amazon.com

Philip Seymour Hoffman adds another great performance to his gallery of losers in Owning Mahowny, an engrossing, fact-based comedy-drama about the perils of compulsive gambling. The subject is hardly new to movies, but as Toronto bank-loan manager Dan Mahowny, Hoffman brings fresh depth and tortured humanity to his portrayal of a man who helplessly feeds his pathological need to gamble with millions in embezzled bank money that he can't afford to lose. His supportive wife (Minnie Driver, barely recognizable beneath a plain-looking wig and glasses) is aware of the problem but not its severity, and in fulfilling the promise of his debut feature Love and Death on Long Island, British director Richard Kwietniowski strikes a delicate balance of humor, adrenalin, and escalating tension, guiding Hoffman, Driver, and an excellent supporting cast (including Long Island's John Hurt) in a quietly suspenseful study of Mahowny's ill-fated impulse. Set in the early 1980s but timeless in its study of dysfunctional behavior, Owning Mahowny is a safe bet for film lovers everywhere. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

See this overlooked gem..........2007-03-08

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a compelling cipher of a gambling addict in this overlooked and tightly-written movie. It is gripping and stress-inducing from the first scene, and doesn't relent. This is a high-stakes train wreck that is Impossible to look away from. See it.

Very good Hoffman performance........2006-12-14

Owning Mahowny (James Kwietnowski, 2003)

There is a scene at almost the exact halfway point of Owning Mahowny that sums the film up perfectly. Dan Mahowny (the great Philip Seymour Hoffman) is standing in the shower, having just gotten back from a jaunt in Atlantic City where he lost half a million dollars. His girlfriend Belinda (Minnie Driver) confronts him with her suspicions that he has a gambling problem. He says to her, "I don't have a gambling problem. I have... a financial problem." It makes perfect sense in the framework, but when hearing it, you have no idea if Mahowny is lying to cover up his problem or whether he's truly too delusional to see what's happening to him. This question is not answered until the film's final scene-- and when it is, it's an incredible sucker punch, the kind of thing you see coming, but you're too fascinated by the death and destruction laid out before you to even think about avoiding. And that's what makes this film so compelling, despite the fact that, well, it's not.

Yes, I know, that makes no sense. But that's how I kept feeling about it. I would watch for a while, then wonder whether anything was ever actually going to happen, and realize that forty-five minutes had passed. I'd wonder when the incredible stable of actors Kwietnowski recruited for this movie were going to start living up to their potential, and then the movie would pop up with a scene like the one I mention at the beginning. And, of course, there are things like unanswered questions you don't think you'll ever get the answers to.

The plot is simple: Dan Mahowny, a bank executive with a small gambling problem suddenly finds himself in charge of an account where he will have virtually unlimited access to millions of dollars. Hilarity ensues, in a brutally tragic sort of way. While Mahowny continues living his hand-to-mouth life in his native Canada, in Atlantic City he's one of the kings, the high rollers who get armed escorts through the casino, has a personal, first-name relationship with the owner (John Hurt) and a hotel employee whose entire job is to cater to his every whim (Chris Collins). Needless to say, his two lives have to catch up with one another eventually.

I'm of two minds about the movie, and like the character of Dan Mahowny himself, I can't be sure whether it's duplicitous or simply thoughtless. I look back on the movie without thinking much of it-- it kind of fades into the background, like Mahowny himself-- but I remember being absorbed without realizing I was being absorbed. I remember glimpses of greatness, single lines that worked well, great performances from minor characters. But I have to work to remember them. And on one level, this is sheer genius, this idea that the film reflects its focus (in some ways, Owning Mahowny is the epitome of McLuhan's famous charge that "the medium is the message"). On some level, though, maybe Kwietnowski could have picked a flashier subject for that sort of approach. .*** ½

Predictable.......2006-08-23

Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Dan Mahowny stole from the rich and gave to the bookie. I suppose we all can get soppy about a fat fuzz ball loser that can't stop gambling with his bank's money. The film is non-stop losing all day - all the time. No psychosis is more devastating than suicide by chance. The fellow gives it away in a perpetual state of orgiastic losses. He doesn't necessarily hurt the rich woman he is pilfering, but he does ruin his career and love life.

I wouldn't get real excited about this film. There is no character, including Philip Seymour Hoffman you really care about. It's not a comedy and certainly no drama. We know what's going to happen.

Phyllip Seymour Hoffman's Best Performance.......2006-07-03

Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a tour-de-force performance in this gripping tale of gambling addiction. Based on a true story, this simple but elegantly written story takes us on a journey into the mind of a good man who becomes enslaved and must continue to feed his unsatiable need to gamble unti he inevitably loses it all.

A Class Act~.......2006-03-06

Before Hoffman made himself a household name in Capote, he had been diligently working in many indie movies that gave him a reputation for being a chameleon. Hoffman is a character actor and I'm sure that before undertaking this role, he would have studied the real Mahowny intensely. Other than Hoffman, there's Paul Giacamatti that came to my mind who's also as versatile as he is. The premise of the movie is to bring to light how any ordinary persons would get addicted to something so strongly and yet, there are the casinos who would try their best to reap every cents out of the pathological gamblers. This movie really brings to light that with given power, authorities such as the casinos should act responsibly for to well-being of their clients rather than minding for their bottomlines simply. John Hurt was also simply brilliant as the conniving and manipulative casino's boss whilst Minnie Driver was just as effective playing Mahowny's soon-to-be-wed girlfriend, who believed in her man in totality but didn't know the extent Mahawny had dug his hole that he couldn't come out from. A good social study of the society we are living in. Highly recommended and a definite showcase for Hoffman. Not much extra features in here other than the commentary.

Average customer rating:

Cool and elegant blend of American gangster film and French sophisticated comedy of manners
What about Bob?
Gallic phlegm, highlighted by an atmosheric thriller.
Lady Luck Ushers in the French New Wave.
A heist movie that's all about style and the gangster code, just like Bob, and with a great twist of elegant irony

Bob le Flambeur - Criterion Collection
Starring: Gerard Buhr , Daniel Cauchy , Claude Cerval , Isabelle Corey , and Guy Decomble
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Manufacturer: Criterion
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Un Flic

ASIN: B0000633SC
Release Date: 2002-04-16

Amazon.com

A singular masterpiece that served as a clarion call for the coming French New Wave, this 1955 love letter to the city of Paris and the American urban noir films of the 1930s and 1940s is precisely the sort of cinematic consideration of genre influences that became the soul of early works by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Claude Chabrol. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (a filmmaker so enamored of American culture he adopted the name of Moby Dick's author), Bob le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) concerns a courtly gangster who plans on robbing a casino. But the film is less about the trappings of a conventional heist tale than about Melville's embrace of the form and his wistful weavings within it. The title character (Roger Duchesne) is almost a knight errant, with a visible gallantry and code of loyalty suggesting Melville's own dreams of film tradition, reinvented into something both faithful and new. A terrific experience and an important sliver of film history. --Tom Keogh

Description

Suffused with wry humor, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur melds the toughness of American gangster films with Gallic sophistication to lay the roadmap for the French New Wave. As the neon is extinguished for another dawn, an aging gambler navigates the treacherous world of pimps, moneymen, and naïve associates while plotting one last score-the heist of the Deauville casino. This underworld comedy of manners possesses all the formal beauty, finesse and treacherous allure of green baize.

Customer Reviews:

Cool and elegant blend of American gangster film and French sophisticated comedy of manners.......2007-06-19

Jean-Pierre Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" (1955) has been often called the first film of the French New Wave. First or not, French New Wave or not, "Bob le Flambeur" is one of the coolest and memorable films I've seen. The most fascinating element of this exquisite crime/dram/noir film is its title character, Bob Montagne- Bob the Gambler (Roger Duchesne). All women wanted to be with him and all young men wanted to be him. He was the man well respected and liked by the cops, the criminals, and the gamblers alike - the king of cool, the elegant loser with his own respectable code of honor. He drove an American car and wore an American hat but he belonged to the streets of Montmartre, Paris, where he was born just as the film itself that could've been only made by a French director who admired American films and had created a perfect blend of American gangster film and French sophisticated comedy of manners. Made back in 1955, the movie is fresh, crisp, sensual, modern and simply delightful. Having watched already all "Ocean's" movies, including Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack's classic, I see where the inspiration for them came from. "Bob Le Falmbeur" was released in the USA in 1982, nine years after Melville's death and became an instant cult hit. Often, cult movies are not the best made but it is not true in the case of "Bob le Flambeur". Its direction is perfect: seemingly simple and truly elegant, its cinematography is beautiful, its music score is amazing and its characters are not the caricatures - they are the real human beings of flesh and blood and they have something (or a lot) to lose. Acting is great by everyone with Roger Duchesne unforgettable and Isabelle Corey as a young streetwalker Anne whom Bob took under his wing, absolutely marvelous in her first role - child-like innocent yet already perfectly aware of her powers over the men, by the words of Bob's friend, "she will go far -she knows what she wants but does not show it".

What about Bob?.......2007-03-16

The story of Bob is a very good one. Told by the expert hands of Melville, Bob le flambeur sucks you in with wonderfull pacing, integrity and a strong sense of itself. The movie is about a crook of a dying kind - honorable and civil (the movie hinted that Bob was part of La bande à Bono; who invented bank robbing with a gateway car!)- who wants to hit a big scrore before fading out in retirement. Bob le flambeur is a joy to watch because the movie is not afraid to take it's time in telling it's story. Not to say that the movie is slow, the pacing let's you soak up the atmosphere and the feel of things. When a movie of this kind is well done (as it is the case here)you get caught by it and you will always find yourself with a renew desire to watch it again. To me this is the best reason to warrant a purchase, and furthermore, Bob is a realy cool guy.

Gallic phlegm, highlighted by an atmosheric thriller........2007-02-22

A rollercoaster ride, from beginning to end. The characters are superbly portrayed by the Director, the plot is believable, the end contains a message, years ahead of its time.

Lady Luck Ushers in the French New Wave. .......2007-01-04

"Bob le Flambeur" is a much-lauded precursor to the French New Wave directed and co-written by Jean-Pierre Melville. The street shots, hand-held cameras, and rhythm were New Wave before the Wave arrived. Bob Montagne (Roger Duchesne) is an ex-hood and inveterate gambler down on his luck. He enjoys the friendship of Paris Police Lieutenant Ledru (Guy Decomble) who once sent him to prison. Paulo (Daniel Cauchy), a young protege, looks up to him. And Bob's protective instinct has moved him to take in teenaged prostitute Anne (Isabelle Corey), who proves irresistible to Paulo. But Bob is broke. When he learns that the Deauville Casino will have an enormous sum of money in its safe on Grand Prix Day, Bob plots with old friend and safecracker Roger (Andre Garet) to heist the casino.

Jean-Pierre Melville's admiration for American crime films of the 1940s and gangster films of the 1930s is evident in "Bob le Flambeur". This film looks back to a pre-War underworld culture at the same time it looks forward to the New Wave. "Bob le Flambeur" had a modest reception when it was released in 1955 but became the object of much admiration in the 1960s. The film is vaguely plotted, the characters barely written, and the acting ranges from adequate to bad. I don't see anything brilliant here, but the film's style is the main attraction. Its amateurishness is very much a part of that style, along with location shooting and a rhythm derived from the streets. I was immediately intrigued by the backgrounds that are almost constantly enveloped in fog, causing the figures in the foreground to stand out sharply against the murky features behind them.

The female characters are conspicuously hollow -not surprising, as Melville gravitated toward men's stories. Young Anne and the wife (Colette Fleury) of croupier Jean are plot devices. They are two-faced, stupid, and pathologically selfish. And that's it. They exist to throw a monkey wrench into the men's plans. And Anne brings some sex to the film. Their motives are incomprehensible and, I think, actually nonexistent. The vacuousness of these two non-characters is conspicuous in Bob's mostly male world. I think fans of the New Wave will be fascinated by "Bob le Flambeur", while others will not be. It has more to offer as a style that reflects and anticipates the intellectual and social movements of a certain time and place than it has story or characters. "Bob le Flambeur" was remade as "The Good Thief" in 2003. Although its approach to the heist is more conventional and "Hollywood", the depth of characters and acting are better in "The Good Thief".

The DVD (Criterion Collection 2002): Bonus features are 2 interviews and a theatrical trailer (3 1/2 min). "Daniel Cauchy Interview" (22 min), conducted in 2002 by Lenny Borger, is interesting and worthwhile. Cauchy, who played Paulo, talks about working with Jean-Pierre Melville, the trials of shooting intermittently over a 2-year period, the underworld culture that Melville wrote about, the film's themes, and filming his death scene. In French with English subtitles. "Jean-Pierre Melville Radio Interview" (20 min) was conducted in 1961 by Gideon Bachmann for his "Film Art" radio show. Melville discusses what attracted him to American filmmaking, his style as a predecessor to the Nouvelle Vague, his approach to filmmaking, and themes. In English and French. Film is in French with optional English subtitles.

A heist movie that's all about style and the gangster code, just like Bob, and with a great twist of elegant irony .......2006-07-22

Flamber is a French verb which means to wager not just the money you have but the money you don't have. Bob Montagne (Roger Duchesne) has earned his nickname. He's a compulsive gambler, unable to pass a card table or a game of chemin de fer without pausing, then sitting in. He's such a poor gambler, or an unlucky one, that he consistently loses. Bob also is a man with a code of honor and a style. He's middle aged with white hair and a smooth face. He's at heart a gangster and has served time in prison. He's been straight for 20 years, always dresses well and keeps an apartment with a view of the Seine and Sacre-Coeur. He drives a polished, two-tone Cadillac convertible. He once saved the life of Inspector Ledru (Guy Decomble), with whom he is friendly, and keeps under his wing the callow son, Paulo (Daniel Cauchy), of an old mob friend. He intervenes when a young girl, Anne (Isabelle Corey), is about to fall into the clutches of a pimp and takes her to his apartment so she'll have a place to stay...not to sleep with, however. That would be against his code. And when Bob loses his last 700 francs, he learns that the casino at Deauville will have as much as 800 million francs in its safe. The temptation is too much. He and a good friend decide to rob the place. They bring in Paulo, they find a casino croupier to provide inside information, they recruit experienced gangsters, they find a backer. Bob and his gang plan the heist down to the last detail, starting with the chalked outline of the casino in an open field, to careful practice on a duplicate safe, to a clever, short fantasy introduced by a narrator who tells us, "Here's how Bob pictured the heist," that should have you smiling.

But there is also pillow talk to impress a lover, jealousy for better things than a bracelet, a betrayal or two, a murder of retribution and a police inspector who may want to warn Bob off but who is not going to sit by and allow the robbery to take place.

"I'll be upstairs pretending to play the tables to make sure everything's okay," Bob tells his gang. "If not, I'll give you a signal and we'll delay the job. Otherwise, if you don't see me by 5 a.m. sharp, that means we're on." At 1 a.m., Bob is at the casino...and he stops to watch the roulette table. Before long he's sitting in, then moving to play chemin de fer, then moving on to play in one of the casino's private rooms. Occasionally he remembers to check his watch. And for once in his life, Bob le Flambeur is winning bigger than he could ever have imagined. The movie moves to a conclusion which includes a twist of elegant irony, a bit of violence, and a hope that Bob will be able to afford a very good lawyer.

Bob le Flambeur may be a simple story about a gambler, but it's also a fascinating tale of style and grubby ambience. Melville filmed the movie over two years, a few days at a time whenever he could come up with the money. He used a hand-held camera out on the streets of Paris. He shows us the grimy, wet streets of Montmartre and the Pigalle neighborhood, with late-night bars and after-hours gambling dens, neon signs, jazz clubs, wet streets, gangster patrons and tough bartenders, hostesses and their marks, milky pastis and lots of cigarette smoke. Melville spends the first 40 minutes of the movie setting us up with Bob, his style and his milieu. It just carries us along.

Melville, it is said, had a great influence on the French New Wave directors. He's spoken of with admiration by such current directors as Scorsese, Woo and Spielberg. When he at last was able to attract name actors, he wrote and directed movies such as Le Samourai and Le Circle Rouge. And while Jean Cocteau invariably gets the credit for Les Enfants Terribles, it was Melville who co-wrote the script and directed. The Criterion DVD edition has a black-and-white transfer which is first-rate. The DVD includes an interesting video interview with Daniel Cauchy, who played Paulo, as well as a short radio interview with Melville.

Average customer rating:

A proper film
james caan itself
Authentic Portrayal of addictive gambling
The Thrill of it All
Excellent Drama

The Gambler
Starring: James Caan , Paul Sorvino , Lauren Hutton , Morris Carnovsky , and Jacqueline Brookes
Director: Karel Reisz
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000062UHC
Release Date: 2002-05-14

Amazon.com essential video

The Gambler is one of the edgier and more interesting, if forgotten, films of the mid-1970s, the kind of studio film that rarely gets made anymore. Based on a screenplay by James Toback (Two Girls and a Guy) and directed by Karel Reisz, the film stars James Caan as a brilliant college literature professor with the same weakness as one of Dostoevsky's characters: He can't resist a wager. Indeed, he's in so deep that even his seemingly good-hearted bookie (Paul Sorvino) is trying to kill him. So he lams out of New York and heads for Las Vegas--where he wins back everything he's lost so he can pay off his massive debts. But is he smart enough to take his winnings and walk away? Caan captures the aggressive compulsiveness of the gambling addict, the strange split between a seemingly intelligent man and an uncontrollably stupid impulse. The film includes early film performances by James Woods and Lauren Hutton. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

A proper film.......2007-04-22

This is a very good film.
After watching it you have to pause and think about what you have seen, and let the impact sink in.
Well acted, well casted, well scripted, well shot, pacy and with a good story that is hard to predict.
It highlights the degeneracy that can affect those born into money, the grandchildren of the penniless hardworking immigrants who passed through Ellis Island and made good in the Golden Land.

james caan itself.......2007-04-11

james caan has play the character very well and is in the centre of the movie.The ups and downs are the gamblers live,but the lesson is dont play with the mafia and dont play with what you love at most.

Authentic Portrayal of addictive gambling.......2006-08-27

This film shows the mentality and thought process of someone who is a gambling addict. The lengths that James Caan goes to keep playing even though his ability to pick winners has eroded and the affect it has on those in his life is right on the mark. The movie accurately shows how the glamour of winning becomes secondary to the need just to have the risk and unflinchingly shows what can happen if you get caught in this complusive trap. It is a scenario I know about from first hand experience

The Thrill of it All.......2006-07-30

James Caan was in some of the hardest hitting films by some of the hardest hitting directors of the seventies and early eighties including Coppola's Godfather I(72), Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (75)and Michael Mann's Thief (81). He also played a number of athlete roles, including Rollerball(75). Whether he's playing an athlete or not Caan moves like an athlete, and he gets jumpy if he has to sit still for too long, and so he's interesting to watch even when he's just crossing the street because its like he's always on the scent of something, always on the prowl.

In the opening scenes of Gambler (74) Caan is playing the tables in an all-night casino and losing one hand after another. By morning, as he's driving home, he realizes he has lost 44,000 dollars. But the jumpy Caan still hasn't been satisfied and when he sees some teens playing basketball he stops his car and hustles up a game. They only have ten bucks but thats enough. It's the thrill of the game and the thrill of the bet that turns him on and he really comes to life on the courts.

His real job we soon find out is pretty high class. He's a college English professor who lectures on Dostoyevsky and the failed/corrupted/compromised American dream (good solid early 70's staple topic that last one). And he does it really well. He's certainly not your usual professor because its obvious just by looking at him and listening to him that he's more physycal than mental and he's actually interested in the thrill of living life and not the agony of writing books about it. Caan's "Axel Freed" is a guy who has seen a lot and done a lot and his students appreciate that he's not a guy who spends his afternoons in the library. But where he does spend his afternoons and evenings is getting him in deep trouble.

The gambling problem seems to stem from the fact that he's never really escaped from the safe confines and purse strings of his social class and this embarrases him and makes him feel inauthentic and unmanly. Its like he was born to a reality or class that never fit, and he's been trying to return to his rightful home (the streets, the basketball courts, the tennis courts, the boxing ring) ever since. Money has always stood between Axel Freed and the life he imagines tobe his own. Even when at home with his lady he can't stand still; he's perpetually shadow boxing in the mirror and perusing the sports page and ringin' up his bookie. Day to day, moment to moment, he lives for the thrill of those last seconds of a game when his whole life depends on whether the basketball will or will not go in. Watching him take incredible risks is painful because we fear where it will all lead, but its also exhilerating.

Caan is tough in The Gambler, no doubt, but the role of Axel Freed allows him to stretch and show that he can play not only a physical guy but a physical guy with a lot going on in his head. Its a pleasure to see James Caan sitting in front of an English class lecturing to a group of attentive students about why man does not always follow the dictates of reason. "Reason," Axel reads from his copy of Dostoyevsky, "satisfies our rational requirements, but desire encompasses everything." What makes this especially interesting is that we know Axel Freed isn't just some egghead with a set of theories but that he's taking his lessons from real life.

Axel seems to have a great job and a great sexy girlfriend (Lauren Hutton) but its just not enough to keep his attention; he needs that extra adrenalin rush that only extreme situations that sports and gambling and pushin' the bounds of reason can provide.

The film reminds me of Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces but its much grittier and the ending is so unexpected and raw that many may be turned off by it but it has the advantage of giving you a final glimpse of this character that you are not likely to forget.

Unexpected ending but hits right where it should.

If you wanted to you could probably analyze this film from a number of angles. One being that modern man just isn't satisfied living in his settled society doing mundane tasks but then that might sound too academic and too trite and thats just what Axel's trying to escape from.

O yes the film is like a yearbook of seventies actors as there are about fifteen recognizable faces in supporting roles: including Lauren Hutton as girlfriend, Paul Sorvino as bookie, Huggie Bear as a pimp, and James Woods as a snotty bank clerk who Caan has to rough up.

Karel Reisz was himself a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia. He fled to the UK to escape the Holocaust so the story of Axel Freed's uncle is especially interesting in that light. Reisz also directed another tremendous seventies film called Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) based on Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers and starring Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld.

Excellent Drama.......2005-08-18

An excellent movie, given an average treatment on DVD- that is to say, good picture quality, murky sound, and zero extras. Its still worth a purchase though, for the movie itself.

Average customer rating:

The of The Series as Kenny Rogers As The Gambler.
What can one say
One of the best western style movies I have ever seen
This is why I don't watch poker on TV

The Gambler
Starring: Ed Bakey , Christine Belford , Bruce Boxleitner , Bruce M. Fischer , and Clu Gulager
Manufacturer: Time Life Records
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Kenny Rogers: Legend of the Gambler (3 Full-Length Movies: The Gambler, The Adventure Continues, & The Legend Continues) + Bonus: Kenny Rogers Collectors Edition Playing Cards!

ASIN: B000BO0LE0
Release Date: 2006-01-10

Customer Reviews:

The of The Series as Kenny Rogers As The Gambler........2007-04-21

This picture hit the theaters on April 8 1980 starring Kenny Rogers as Brady Hawks and Bruce Boxleitner as Billy Montana. Brady Hawks is seen riding across the country on bareback while Billy Montana is waiting in a train station because the train broke down and is being fixed. Therefore, Billy sits down next to a beautiful woman and tries to strike up a conversion. Billy is on his way to San Francisco to play in one of the biggest poker games ever. So Hawks rides into town, gets of his horse and tells the attendant that if he's not back in a week to sell his horse. While Billy's playing cards he gets accused of cheating. When one of the players goes to reach into his pockets, Brady gets to him first and pulls out the cowboy's hidden revolver. Brady tells Billy that he was cheating also, but he was better at it and that's why he didn't get caught. Therefore, Billy challenges Brady to a card game a partial dealer. Billy started the game with $300.00 dollars and it didn't take Brady long to take that away from him. It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the train after all. It seems the reason for the delay; the train was waiting for the train's owner Mr. Stobridge. While on the train, Brady pulls out a letter and starts to read it. Brady finds out from reading the letter that he has a son name Jeremiah that he never knew about and that he and his ma were in trouble. You see Jeremiah mom got herself involve with a bad man named Roof. So when Jeremiah is caught, he's taken to Roof where Roof ask him what's in the letter? When Jeremiah refuses to tell Roof, he takes it out on his ma while Jeremiah runs out of the saloon. After it gets dark, Jeremiah makes his way back to his mom bedroom. His mom, who's supporting a swollen eye thanks to Roof, gives Jeremiah money to get on the stage and go to a town called Saint Aerie. Jeremiah is instructed that when he gets there he's suppose to go to Mrs. Carlson rooming house. Jeremiah is to watch the train for his father because if his dad is coming the train has to stop in Saint Aerie first. Will Jeremiah find his dad and will they be able to save his mom. You can get this DVD and the other involving Kenny Rogers as the Gambler right here at Amazon.com

What can one say.......2007-01-09

Kenny Rogers makes a great western person I have alot of his other one I bought this to add to my Western DVD collection

One of the best western style movies I have ever seen.......2006-03-02

I loved this movie. It was just a down right good movie from beginning to end. Kind of lets you go back to the way things were back in that day.

This is why I don't watch poker on TV.......2005-12-17

I know you can find poker now on ESPN, Fox, Food TV and cartoon network, but I don't watch any of them. You wanna know why? Come here, I'll tell you. First, I'm an incredibly gifted poker player and second, this movie is all you need to know about poker. To this day, when a loser comes up to me and asks how to play poker you know what I tell them? I say, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to reach across the table and drop a people's elbow" I learned that from the Mr. Myagi of poker, Kenneth Dale Rogers. This movie is about a crazy poker player that makes people mad with his cooky ways and then sings his way out of trouble.

I do this too. I win every poker game I play because I can bluff like you can only dream of. They call me Rich Kings Bluffnest Nook when I play poker. That's my name combined with bluffing. I can be holding a 2, a king, a 7, a joker and a 1985 topps Bob Owchinko baseball card and I can get a guy with a straight flush to fold. I'm just gifted I guess. I'm like Steve Perry of Journey, sometimes you wonder if I'm of this world. Well, get this DVD and you are only your journey to being 1/34th as good as me.

Average customer rating:

Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler
A major force in Germany 1922
A German silent cinema masterpiece in restored form
good Fritz Lang film but a horrendous soundtrack - Kino vers
Fritz Lang's TRUE Silent Masterpiece.

Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler
Starring: Rudolf Klein-Rogge , Aud Egede Nissen , Gertrude Welcker , Alfred Abel , and Bernhard Goetzke
Director: Fritz Lang
Manufacturer: Kino Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000FS9FLW
Release Date: 2006-07-18

Amazon.com

It's hard to imagine that the razor-sharp Kino DVD of Fritz Lang's first magnum opus fails to capture any of the visual electricity and heady atmosphere experienced by Berlin filmgoers in 1922. The film's historical importance to the crime-film genre and its thematic relevance to the director's later work have never been in dispute, but with only murky, choppy editions to go by, the movie has largely been paid lip service for its legacy rather than appreciated for itself. Now, thanks to this definitive restoration by the Murnau Institute, we can properly see it and experience it.

Dr. Mabuse the Gambler is actually two films in one--or, more precisely, one film in two feature-length parts totaling four-and-a-half hours and conceived to be watched on consecutive evenings. Its title character is a criminal mastermind with the power and the will to orchestrate complex capers, counterfeit national currencies, manipulate the stock market, and hypnotically bend anyone to play a role in his diabolical designs. The hand of Mabuse seems to reach everywhere--for the excellent reason that the Doctor himself, a master of disguise, turns out to be just about anywhere at just the moment his intervention will wreak havoc and wreck lives. (He's played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who would repeat the part ten years later in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and also, in spirit if not in name, in Lang's dazzling 1928 film Spies; he was also the inventor Rotwang in Metropolis--as well as, offscreen, the former husband of Lang's screenwriter wife Thea von Harbou!)

The film's title in German is Doktor Mabuse der Spieler, and our supervillain is really less a gambler (all his games of chance are rigged) than a player: playing multiple roles, but even more importantly, playing with others' lives, playing with the very fabric of modern reality. The subtitles of the two parts are "A Picture of the Time" and "People of the Time"; the film is an artifact of the Weimar era when, as one character remarks, "We are bored and tired ... we need sensations of a very special kind to remain alive." Lang and his art directors, Otto Hunte and Karl Stahl-Urach, create a hallucinatory mise-en-scène in which the decor is at once stark and decadent, a playground for all manner of perverse spectacle and gamesmanship, a maze of corridors and doorways and streets where the modern and the gothic interlayer. This world ripe for Mabusian manipulation prefigured Hitler by a decade--and in one of his last declarations, the Doctor anticipates more contemporary visionaries of chaos: "I feel as a state within a state, with which I have always been at war." Fritz Lang continues to be a chillingly prophetic filmmaker. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews:

Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler.......2007-06-18

Winning the trust of wealthy businessmen he can manipulate to his own ends, mad mesmerist Dr. Mabuse (Klein-Rogge) employs his psychic abilities to lure millionaire Edgar Hull (Paul Richter) into a fateful card game, prising information he plans to use in order to corner trade on the stock market. But wily police commissioner Von Wrenk (Bernhard Goetzke) is on Mabuse's trail, and is planning to bring an end to the devious doctor's criminal operation.

Newly remastered by Kino video, this crisp DVD creates the electricity and atmosphere experienced by Berlin moviegoers in 1922. Lang's sinister thriller is a vivid, engaging tale of crime and evil (the German director's lifelong preoccupation from "M" to "The Big Heat") that plunges us into a seedy underworld of dingy cabarets and gambling houses in 1920s Berlin. Klein-Rogge is amazing as the malevolent master criminal, a calculating opponent seized with hubris and a penchant for clever disguises. Avoiding all the pitfalls of overly stagy silents, Lang brilliantly handles the (rather explosive) action and livens the pace, creating an atmospheric, fully realized world. Best viewed over two nights owing to its four-hour length, "Mabuse" is an eerily brilliant pinnacle of early cinema.

A major force in Germany 1922 .......2007-03-20

The period after WW1 was for Germany featured by an unbridled vices, sharp depression in many orders, hopeless, desperation, deep despair, hysteria and cynicism. So Dr. Mabuse should be the prototype of his own time, a man who didn't' t believe in love but desire; a gambler, he bets, plays cards, roulette and lives and fates of people simply because there was not reason for not making it. "If God doesn't exist , everything is permitted" , in words of Dostoievsky. Mabuse represents the reincarnation of Faust in a decaying environment, where power is the reason for living and the perfect substitute for happiness. That's why the final is so admirably metaphorical when he escapes via the sewer tunnels.

Lang mirrored with accurate precision and dramatic realism the state of things in which Germany was involved would seem to materialize the foreseen visions of the Expressionism, artistically expressed just two years ago in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

Powerful filmic achievement that simply overpowers all kind of sublime adjectives to describe this prominent landmark in the cinema.

A German silent cinema masterpiece in restored form.......2006-08-08

Fritz Lang's brilliantly directed and designed DR. MABUSE: THE GAMBLER (1922, Germany) is one of the crowning achievements of the German silent cinema from the decade following World War One. And Kino Video in Manhattan has given it a magnificent restoration that runs a full four-and-a-half hours. The print is beautiful, way longer than previous versions on home video, and with an evocatively harsh piano and violin score by Aljoscha Zimmermann and ensemble.

Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is the archetype of all master criminals in a century of espionage movies, from James Bond to Alfred Hitchcock. He is a master of many disguises and is forever masterminding all means of terrorism in early 1920's Berlin. In this respect, DR. MABUSE: THE GAMBLER is very timely and contemporary.

In a movie that is also a commentary on 1920's Germany living, Mabuse works out of (or frequents) a cabaret with a gambling table that vanishes quickly in case of a police raid, and that offers cocaine for the mere asking. One wonders whether the cast and crew of Bob Fosse's CABARET (1972) saw this movie. Thea von Harbou's adaptation of Norbert Jacques' novel keeps the action moving quickly, despite the mammoth length. Something is always blowing up, and Mabuse is forever in another disguise to elude the police.

Actually, the 270 minute length is an asset because continuity holes have been filled in. We have two separate movies with an intermission for easy two night viewing on home video. (The intermission is at the two-and-a-half hour mark) The cinematography is by Carl Hoffmann, while the wondrous art direction is by Otto Hunte and Carl Stahl-Urach. Other cast members include METROPOLIS' Alfred Abel, Bernardt Goetzke, Aud Egede Nissen, and Paul Richter.

DR. MABUSE: THE GAMBLER is the grandfather of all espionage movies and cannot be recommended highly enough to fans of this genre. In its Kino Video restoration (which actually is a Berlin-Munich-Moscow restoration with Kino as American distributor), the movie is a stupendous achievement even by today's achievements. If you like it, then check out Kino's impeccable restorations of such other Lang silent restorations as DIE NIEBULENGEN (1924), METROPOLIS (1927), and SPIES (1928).
At (800) 562-3330 or Amazon.com, they are the definitive source for Lang silents.

good Fritz Lang film but a horrendous soundtrack - Kino vers.......2006-08-08

This new Kino version of the film has 40 or so more minutes of film, but unfortunatly has a terrible, almost unlistenable soundtrack of some guy plink-plinking a