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Rounders
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
David Levien
Brian Koppelman
Directed by: John Dahl
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 11, 1998
DVD: July 3, 2001
Running Time: 121 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive strong language, some sexuality and brief drug use
Starring Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Gretchen Mol, Ray Iannicelli, Famke Janssen, John Malkovich, and Martin Landau
A story of passion, risk, and the extreme price of friendship in the world of high-stakes poker. (Miramax)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Joy Ride The Great Raid The Last Seduction
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The New Yorker Bruce Diones
Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien have given some crackerjack card-shark dialogue to two hot young actors—Matt Damon and Edward Norton—and together with John Dahl's atmospheric direction they've all made a dream of a poker movie.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
This isn't a movie where story matters that much: It's a movie of character and milieu, both of which it evokes brilliantly.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Mischievously entertaining...Dahl's film has character in oversupply even if its actual characters are sometimes thin. Poker fever makes up for whatever the story lacks in everyday emotions.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Damon is a magical actor. His mind, as sharp and focused as a laser, beams out of the face of a vivacious choirboy, and, in nearly every scene, he invites you to share the jet-propelled pleasure of his precocious agility.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
For a grimmer and more realistic look at this world, no modern movie has surpassed Karel Reisz's "The Gambler'' (1974), starring James Caan in a screenplay by self-described degenerate gambler James Toback.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Edvins Beitkis
In spite of how hard everything is to believe, you believe what Damon is doing.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Although the storyline is predictable, the intelligent dialogue and top-drawer acting more than make up for the possible deficiency.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Most novel is Rounders' message that the real sin isn't giving into vice but denying your God-given talents and not risking it all.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Because I'm a sucker--I was entertained...The script is good at making you think that it has better cards than it really does. And the actors constitute a royal flush--OK, OK, enough with the poker metaphors.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
That is the heart of what's missing here: the buzz that unites these games and players, the seductive lure that excites as it also placates. The dramatic throughline is murky as well...Undeniably good are the performances, however.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Oughtta be much bettor.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Though it's a good-looking flick with some smart acting and a few flashy runs, it barely breaks even dramatically, and feels, overall, like a good chance wasted.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Lazy, predictable and even dumb about what happens away from the tables. [11 Sept 1998]
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Stylish entertainment and smartass fun when director John Dahl ("The Last Seduction") plays his strong suit (a gifted cast) instead of his weakest (a derivative plot).
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Richly atmospheric but a little thin in the character department: It feels oddly truncated, despite nicely textured performances.
Read Full Review >Film.com Sean Means
Alas, when Rounders lays out its cards, the results aren't as much as you'd been led to believe. But the movie's style and authenticity run a good bluff.
Film Threat Ron Wells
It's too bad with all of the poker action there wasn't enough time to establish the relationships between characters.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Though the movie looks gorgeous, glittering with the monochromatic beauty of noir transposed into the key of yellow, it chugs along like an overly responsible documentary, more the working out of an idea about the gambler's true nature than a story.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Intermittently engaging but dramatically slack, this tale...is more interesting around the edges than it is at its core, thanks to the dull nature of the lead character played by Matt Damon.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo
Damon looks like a kid lost in the wrong neighborhood, and his acting manners underscore that impression--everything is a bit too fine, too neat...An intermittently interesting, intermittently foolish film.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The acting is solid, but the story builds less drama and suspense than its high-stakes subject might lead you to expect.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It should have been the poker equivalent of "The Hustler." But it suffers from iron-poor blood. No energy. It just lies there.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Neither Dahl nor most of his actors ever quite convince us that there's a good reason to sit in front of a movie screen watching them for more than two hours.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Like Malkovich's out of control Russian accent, Rounders ends up reaching a place too hard to understand and even harder to believe in.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
Edward Norton, who created a buzz of excitement in his first year in movies, stubs his toe with Worm... It's the same guy we've seen in countless mean streets pictures, but Norton doesn't find anything new to do with him. He's Ratso Rizzo defanged.
Film.com Tom Keogh
Rounders is more involved with the insulated, arcane world of a gambler than it is with the things that actually make a movie work, such as characters and relationships and a script that connects all its dots.
Washington Post Rita Kempley
And while it's intermittently engaging, the drama's flatter than a sucker's wallet.
Read Full Review >Film.com John Hartl
It's "The Hustler with poker and without soul...For all its flash and occasional sizzle, "Rounders" is a disappointment.
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
A tiresome 1998 rip-off of The Hustler, with poker (in a New York Russian Mafia milieu) taking the place of pool, Matt Damon taking over for Paul Newman, and John Malkovich's scenery chewing supplanting Jackie Gleason's self-effacement.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Everything in Rounders is right there on the surface. Watching it is about as exciting as playing poker with all the cards face up. [14 Sept 1998]
Village Voice J. Hoberman
An unappealing, conventional, and somnolent piece of work in which, as glumly directed from David Levien and Brian Koppelman's corny script, every scene feels like it's being played for the second time.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Gabor A. gave it a3:
As typical of a movie you can make about card playing. A ninth grader selected at random and told to write a movie about poker would come up with a script very similar to this film. Rounders see's all the angle's but doesn't have the courage to make a move.
Sean F. gave it a9:
The critics were mostly off on this one, I don't know the movies it is supposedly a knockoff of, but I think this movie's awesome. I don't play poker, and I think it's great, I would think any poker player would think it's sick!
John B. gave it a10:
The greatest movie about poker.
Chris P. gave it a10:
Awesome!
Paul H gave it a6:
It's alright, but it doesn't all the way work, you have to pretty much be really into poker to like this movie, so that's a bad thing. unlike say Sideways, where you don't have to give a damn about wine to enjoy that film, that's just one example of what i'm talking about.
Mark W. gave it a10:
Awesome.
Cosmo K. gave it a10:
Probably one of the best movies i have ever seen...
