Whenever I see "such and such presents" on the cover of a movie I think to myself oh no, this movie obviously isn't very strong and they need to attach a good filmmaker's name to it to try and trick people into thinking it's good. I hoped that wouldn't be the case with 'The Card Counter' but it absolutely was. This movie was a bit of a mess.
There are a lot of scenes where the lead character narrates different casino games and explains how best to win them. There is the odd interesting one like the card counting explanation, however most of them are embarrassing to listen to when you know a thing or two about casino games. They are both over-dramatised and over-simplified at the same time.
The film itself is just bizarre. Characters find connections without the film doing anything to sell them to us. We are just supposed to accept them. It's really odd. Also for a large portion of the film we have no idea what the point is. Things just kind of drift along and you wonder why you are even watching this. Then at the end it tries to make up for all that lost time, but again it is just so out of place, unearned and unusual that it has no effect on you at all.
I wanted to like this film, I really did. The premise sounded so good in the synopsis. I assure you though, the promise of "cinematic intensity" is not lived up to for one minute. This is one of the least intense films I've ever witnessed. I'll generously give this a 5/10. Not one I'd recommend.
