- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
75For 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.
-
In spite of how hard everything is to believe, you believe what Damon is doing.
-
75Most novel is Rounders' message that the real sin isn't giving into vice but denying your God-given talents and not risking it all.
-
75Although the storyline is predictable, the intelligent dialogue and top-drawer acting more than make up for the possible deficiency.
-
63Though 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.
-
50The acting is solid, but the story builds less drama and suspense than its high-stakes subject might lead you to expect.
-
50It should have been the poker equivalent of "The Hustler." But it suffers from iron-poor blood. No energy. It just lies there.
-
60Richly atmospheric but a little thin in the character department: It feels oddly truncated, despite nicely textured performances.
-
60It's too bad with all of the poker action there wasn't enough time to establish the relationships between characters.
-
67That 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.
-
75Damon 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.
-
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.
-
80Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses.
-
80Mischievously 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.
-
80This isn't a movie where story matters that much: It's a movie of character and milieu, both of which it evokes brilliantly.
-
70Because 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.
-
60Stylish 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).
-
60Alas, 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.
-
50Though 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.
-
50Intermittently 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.
-
50Damon 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.
-
40Neither 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.
-
40Like Malkovich's out of control Russian accent, Rounders ends up reaching a place too hard to understand and even harder to believe in.
-
40And while it's intermittently engaging, the drama's flatter than a sucker's wallet.
-
30An 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.
-
30A 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.
-
63Lazy, predictable and even dumb about what happens away from the tables. [11 Sept 1998]
-
63Oughtta be much bettor.
-
40Edward 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.
-
40Rounders 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.
-
40It's "The Hustler with poker and without soul...For all its flash and occasional sizzle, "Rounders" is a disappointment.
-
30Everything 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]
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 8 out of 11
-
Mixed: 2 out of 11
-
Negative: 1 out of 11
-
GaborA.3
-
9
-
5