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Rounders
Title: Rounders Director: John Dahl Starring: Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich Length: 121 minutes Date: 1998 Rating: Rated R for pervasive strong language, some sexuality and brief drug use Rating:  Available at: Amazon.com ($16.99 w/Free Shipping available) INTRODUCTION This film has single-handedly motivated millions of people to play poker competitively. Somewhat of a disapointment among the masses, it has attained the ultimate cult status in the poker world. It’s rare that you can play in a poker game with friends and go through the whole night without someone quoting at least one line from the movie. Ask a random person how many times they have seen the movie and they will probably say never. Ask a poker player the same question and you will rarely get an answer below 20. THE PLOT Establishing a conspiratorial tone with low-key voice-over narration, professional poker player Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), a clean-cut, high-stakes poker gambler, is the tour guide who ushers us into the smoky netherland of illicit poker. According to Mike, success in poker comes as much from reading the person as it does from the cards he holds. After losing $30,000 to a Russian gangster named Teddy KGB on one hand, Mike quits the game to focus on his legal studies and to appease his girlfriend Jo. Some time later, Mike's best friend Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison and the two of them start playing poker seriously again. This affects Mike's relationship with Jo an she ends up dumping him. It also affects his academic career as Mike pays minimum attention to his studies and drifts into being a quasi-law student who never attends class or does any work (in other words, he becomes a normal college guy). Mike and Worm then set out on a mission to earn enough money playing poker to pay off Worm's gambling debt that he piled up before going to prison. After accumulating half of the money required to pay off Worm's gambling debts, they decide to play in a big game together with a bunch of cops. Worms cheats throughout the game in order to rake in the money quicker. The cops catch them cheating, give them some serious Rodney King action, and take all their money (including the half of the money needed to pay back Worm's debt). This severe ass beating creates a divide in the relationship between Mike and Worm and they go their separate ways. Mike then borrows $10,000 from his law professor and sits down with KGB for a rematch. Mike ends up turning that $10,000 into $55,000 then pays back the professor, pays back Worm's debt that he inherited and ends up with the same $30,000 that he started with. He then gets in a cab to go to Las Vegas to play in some high stakes games (as if the games at KGB's joint were low-limit Party Poker games). CHARACTERS "Rounders" benefits from some colorful supporting performances. The chameleon-like Edward Norton injects a lot of energy as the jittery, impulsive Worm. It's especially fun to watch the animated Worm during the card-playing scenes. On the other hand, some viewers were probably dismayed that Matt Damon was playing a poker genius so quickly after playing a genius in Good Will Hunting. The biggest criticism of the his role was that he was too clean cut. Apparently these viewers were disapointed the poker savant wasn't portrayed as a 300-pound thug-like ex-con because, you know, playing poker for money outside casinos IS illegal and everything. Martin Landau plays the cerebral, philosophical Judge Petrovsky who advices Mike on his life's choices. John Turturro plays Joey Knish, a gambler who doesn't take risks and plays just to make a living. John Malkovich's engaging performance is especially good (and almost cheesy) as KGB, a Russian poker player/gangster with an over-the-top Russian accent. Also worth noting is the undernourished role of Jo, played by Gretchen Mol. One criticism about the characters was that none of the main characters seem vivid. But they are not supposed to be vivid. They are professional poker players and not gamblers. They play a million hands of poker over a lifetime and no one hand will make them or break them. Their grind-out-a-living lifestyle is the gambling equivalent of a 9-5 job. How exciting would it be to film your 9-to-5 cubicle job? Not much. And that's the point. These are everyday guys who go to work every day and put in 8 hours just like you. The poker-as-a-career aspect of this movie isn't about a bunch of guys wildly betting their life savings. It is a juxtaposition of the pure gamblers who have no legitimate potential of accomplishing anything as a poker player and the "real" poker players who are interested in building skills and growing as a player - and if you don't understand the difference then you weren't paying attention. Real poker players aren't going to jump up and down every time they get a full house. One of the scenes that illustrates this perfectly is where Joey Kinish interrupts Mike and his law school buddies in the law library. Mike's girlfriend Jo, who presumably considers Kinish an aquaintance, says "Hello" and asks him how he is doing. After a contemplative pause he answers in a flat tone " . . the same" - as in, the same as I always have been and the same as I always will be - because his goad is steadiness. If Kinish were a professional investor - he would be be investing in bonds, while Mike McDermott would be a day-trader and Worm would probably be trading penny stocks and losing his ass. Another criticism by some reviewers was that there is no character growth. I'm not sure what movie they were watching but most of the characters in the end moved to places where they want to be. Mike drops law and decides to devote his full energy to his poker passion. KGB realizes he isn't God. Jo realizes that she and Mike live in different worlds and breaks up with him without looking back, presumably to start a new relationship with some Starbucks-drinking, briefcase-carrying, BMW-driving, Khakis-wearing, law-school-graduating yuppie. The only character that doesn't grow is Worm, and that was a deliberate move because you know 20 years from now he will still be getting his ass kicked when his old, arthritic fingers are "catching hangers" on every other deal of the cards. THE POKER The poker playing scenes are some of the best in the movie because of the amount of attention paid to the details of poker playing by director John Dahl and writers, David Levien and Brian Koppelman. They delve deeply into the subculture of poker, drench the dialogue in authentic poker lingo, explain all the psychological nuances of the game, and show all the subdued emotions and excitement of the players. Dahl's talent for creating an atmosphere of suspense makes for some tense and exciting poker hands. This movie, in my opinion, gets underappreciated for the fact that it was a movie before it's time. It was basically a precursor to the huge explosion in the popularity in poker. At first glance, some viewers might look at Mike's quest to turn his 5 figure bankroll into millions as an unbelievable Hollywood script twist but the winner of the WSOP for the last 2 years has been an amateur player (Moneymaker and Raymer) who has turned $10,000 into a few million. These days, there are tons of players out there entering satellites for the World Poker Tour and WSOP. And when Joey Kinish tries to convince Mike to take fewer risks in order to make a more certain living at cards and tells him "I don't have dreams of winning the World Series of Poker on ESPN", this shows the decision that most good players go through - should I grind out a moderate low-risk, low-return living or go for the big money and fame? Many players face that decision today as there are players out there grinding out $30,000 a year playing 4 $2/$4 tables at a time 5 hours a day and other players who are trying to score a big tourney win. The authenticity of the poker playing scenes is something most poker players can appreciate. Everyone enjoyed the cameo by Johnny-fucking-Chan. Another scene I remember is when Worm is playing against two Russian players who know each other. During the middle of the hand they start speaking Russian to each other which forces Worm to complain: "English only at the table!". With the popularity of online poker came a growing suspicion of colluding among players which inspired the rule that you can only speak English in most online poker games. ANALYSIS Part of the value of this movie is that it attempts to break down the stereotypes associated with poker. There has always been some type of criminal element injected into poker and the people who play it. I'm not just talking about the illegal status of underground games but also the actual game itself. People have always thought of professional poker players as con men who sit down with novice players and steal their money. In poker you aren't trying to "con" anyone. If two players sit down at a card table they both know the object of the game is to take the money away from the other person. To be good at poker you need to read people. Admittedly, being street smart and being able to read people usually go hand in hand, but scruffy street-wise underground poker thugs don't have a monopoly on the ability to analyze human behavior. Most players today are normal, intelligent people. Even with the recent increase in the legitimacy of poker as a skill game, the film still gets caged in these stereotypes despite the fact that the film offers you a chance to increase your understanding of the game and the people who play it. One review I read said that "'Rounders' offers no powerful insight into the world of gambling." Really? The main point of all the poker-related plot was to show people that poker is a skill game and not the same as playing the lotto, which is something that the general public doesn't understand. You can see the breadcrumbs the writers stuck in the script to educate viewers that playing poker wasn't like playing the lotto. Like the scene where Mike and Worm are trying to figure out a way to make a lot of quick money playing poker to pay back Worm's debt and Worm says "We might as well play the lotto". Big fucking breadcrumb. The scene where Mike is chastised by his oh-so-concerned nagaholic girlfriend illustrates the attempt of writers to educate the audience on the legitimacy of the game. When she complains that he might lose his money again, he shoots back "It's a skill game Jo!". When I heard this line I was immediately convinced that this line was not directed at Jo as much as it was at the audience - to educate their roulette-playing asses. Another unjust criticism is that Mike is a self-destructing gambling addict. Ultimately he loses Jo and law school to poker but his separation from those aspects of his life was something he wanted but didn't realize it. People who are addicted can't stop - that's what addicted means. After the first scene where he loses his life savings he realizes he might not be able to go to law school anymore so he stopped playing when he is losing. He stopped when it was interfering with his life. He did this by giving up the game and devoting his life to his girlfriend and school. That kind of person is not an addict. An addiction is something that interferes with other things that you want to do in life. He didn't really want to be dating what's-her-name or going to law school. Some critics thought that "the movie takes the easy way out, and lets Mike off the hook." Off the hook for what? Oh, right, I forgot - because he was "gambling". Another criticism I didn't wholly agree with was the supposedly unbelievable relationships between the characters. Some people couldn't believe that Mike was friends with Worm when Worm was clearly no good and getting Mike into all sorts of trouble. They thought Mike was "too intelligent" to have a friend like Worm - as if emotions have no effect on a relationship. To me the picture was clear. When they were young, Mike and Worm were a couple of trouble-causing kids. Worm gets into big-time trouble and goes to prison. When he gets out of prison, Mike and Worm resume their friendship. Worm gets Mike into trouble which makes Mike realize that they have grown apart so then Mike cuts Worm off. Not unbelievable to me. The other relationship viewers had trouble with was the one between Mike and Jo because Mike shows no loyalty to her when she stuck by him after he lost all his money even though Mike shows loyalty to Worm, who is an asshole. But Jo didn't stick by him. This would have meant she supported him - which she didn't. She didn't agree with the life he was living (even though it wasn't hurting her) and I'm sure she had a laundry-list of "life changes" that he forced him to make in order for her to stay. Their split had more to do with the fact that she fundamentally didn't understand him at all more than it had to do with any gambling or any gambling-related lies. Are we supposed to believe he is indebted to her because he lost his own money? As if by losing his own money he had wronged her and had to pay her back. Now, if that $30,000 was her money, that would have been a different story. If he had taken your 401(k) money and gambled it away then you could nag him, OK princess? Apparently some people thought Mike was being selfish by wanting to play poker even though it was Jo seemed to be worried about herself ("I stood by you while you lost it all and I don't think I can go through that again"). I think the main problem most people had with their relationship was that the viewers were disapointed that the all-American boy Matt Damon lied to his girlfriend. Oh well, I guess there will be no more trips to Ikea together to go lamp-shopping. Another criticism - The voiceover was annoying. In my opinion, the voiceover offers rich narration to provide just enough explanation about the game to clear up some of its mysteries and to explain his character's motivations. In a game where most of the action is going on inside a person's mind. the audience is hungry to know what's he is thinking. Mike's private dialogue with the viewers satisfies their need. MY CRITICISMS The most unrealistic point in the movie to me was when is watching the judges game and he perfectly predicts every card that every player had and was waiting to get. This wouldn't happen. At best, he could tell who was strong and who was weak but that's about all. I have done this countless times against one hand but not a whole table. The only other problem I had was that the end of the movie was too predictable. Mike's Rocky Balboa-like victory at the end was a bit too calculated. CONCLUSION Rounders provides a fascinating look at the underground poker world. David Levien and Brian Koppelman's story does a very good, if mechanical, job of taking the audience into its seedy milieu while seasoning it with just enough humor to keep it from getting monotonous. The movie's greatest asset is it's attention to detail. The writers have an acute understanding of the game and the poker world, making extensive use of insider vernacular, which lends the film an air of authenticity. Thanks to the writers though, any poker neophytes will be able to easily understand the insider dialogue through context. Although some critics thought the movie had a slow pace, I think this was because the movie doesn't try and be too smart for its own good. Although the movie has a formula script with a predictable ending, the movie is in no rush to get you there. This is because the movie is really about the small moments where the journey itself is the reward. Although Mike is the victor at the end he hasn't really won anything - he simply broke even - which puts the Rocky Balboa-ending a little more in context. His real goal was to win the World Series of Poker and if you take this grandiose plan into account then the movie simply goes sideways - in a good way. The movie doesn't end at the end, it ends in the beginning. It chronicles his growth from someone who doesn't know where he wants to be to someone who knows and decides to take the first step. The whole movie is pretty much the first step - a poker prequel so to speak. If a movie were made about Doyle Brunson, this is what his life would be like before he moved to Las Vegas - playing in underground games before making it to the bigtime. Some viewers were disappinted because the movie doesn't realize its potential. Because gamblers have always made for interesting characters studies, "Rounders" is a movie in which the central character is not nearly as fascinating as the fringe players that surround him. Some people wanted it be a character study of gamblers and tell a good human story. I'm not even sure this is even possible because most of those types of movies are shown through the judgmental eyes of conventional society that portray the character in a bad light. This is exactly what the movie wants to avoid. Rounders began to meander in this direction and by setting the atmosphere and started to explore deeper issues like friendships and relationships but, unfortunately, the script's allegiance to the poker story meant that it had to keep all the subplots as subplots and therefore had to neatly wrap them up because of simple time constraints. ROUNDERS FACTS - Rounders was set in New York City but all of the law school scenes were filmed in and around Rutgers Law School in Newark, NJ. - Worm was originally supposed to smoke but avid nonsmoker 'Norton, Edward' refused. - Matt Damon and 'Norton, Edward' played the $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold 'Em championship event at the 1998 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. During the first of four days, Matt Damon was knocked out by former world champion and poker legend Doyle Brunson. - John Turturro's character, Knish, was based on the unnamed character played by 'Michael Clapsadle' in 1997's "Casino's are coming to Detroit". Writer David Levien, had been in Livonia, Michigan during the shooting of the movie and decided that he wanted to expand on the character. - Screenwriter Brian Koppelman came up with the idea for the script when he heard about a friend of a friend who made more money as a "rounder" - a poker hustler - than from his day job on Wall Street. He met the guy on a street corner in Manhattan, they went down to one of the clubs, where Koppelman, a former artist-and-repertoire scout for a record company, was immediately hooked by the exotic environment. When he got home at 2:30 in the morning, he called old friend Levien and told him about this great movie idea. - Matt Damon got paid $600,000 for his part in the movie. ROUNDERS QUOTES Worm: "In the poker game of life, women are the rake . . . they are the fucking rake." Kinish: "And I need a blowjob from Christy Turlington." Mike: "Listen, if you can't spot the sucker at the table in your first half hour at the table then you ARE the sucker." Mike: "I felt like Buckner walking back into Shea" KGB: "I'm just paying you with your own money from the last time I stick it in you" KGB" "He beat me straight up. Pay him... Pay that man his money." Worm: "Hey, thats a hell of an elk." Worm: "...You should have played those Kings, Mike." Worm: "You know what always cheers me up? Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, where the sand turns to gold." Mike: "I'm sorry John, I don't remember." Mike: "I have what is called the wheel. It has earthy undertones, a smooth draw and enough kick to give me the high and the low." Worm: "Fuck you and your never ending string of boats." Worm: "When the money is gone it's time to move on." Mike: "You fucked his mother." Worm: "If you want to see this next card then you will stop speaking fuckin Sputnik." Mike: "Not hungry?" Worm: "..with those fake versace shirts and shit?" Worm: "I need your charity like i need your cock up my ass." Mike: "Amarillo Slim the greatest proposition gambler of all time held to his fathers maxim, you can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once". Mike: "It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money" Mike: "In confessions of a winning poker player Jack King said few players recall big pots they have won strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." Random Guy: "Does he look like a man beaten by jacks?"
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