You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Gambler.
Is there a smile anywhere in this film? Is there a laugh? Is there a peek of sunshine from behind those dark Ray Ban sunglasses hiding black and blue marks?
The Gambler begins sad and it ends a little less sad.
The Gambler has less optimism than a Bill Cosby for President campaign.
It’s an intense 2 hours.
It’s a shot of dour, with a chaser of angst.
I have seen less sadness in a chicken processing plant.
The Gambler is intense because it’s realistic. The film portrays the sickness that is gambling addiction. The Gambler sinks to insidious depths, held underwater by a filthy rip tide of greed.
Add to this; suicidal rants, ambivalent life pronouncements and prolific self-destructive self-absorption and you’ve got a ticking time bomb of a main character.
Mark Wahlberg delivers a steadfast, believable, consistent performance as English Lit Professor Jim Bennett.
By day he is a querulous, politically incorrect professor who doubts anyone in his class gives a shit. He readily admits he doesn’t.
The rest of the time he is a selfish, addicted gambling fiend. He holds his mother hostage, he begs for money only to piss it away recklessly. When he’s not ruminating death, he spends his time holding his breath in the bathtub while loan sharks beat the hell out of him.
The film creates tension from the opening moment as Walhberg bets $10,000 dollars and doubles it and then doubles it again only to lose it all.
He sucks back an 80 thousand dollar whiskey with the all the emotion of lint.
Everyone implores this self-absorbed maniac to stop, even the dealers taking his money. Wahlberg is an addict. The only way out is to bet big – win big.
And when he doubles down on an 18, I know that this celluloid roller coaster of tension is going to be a long haul.
Even though Wahlberg is not likeable, I like him. Even though he is a fool, with the conviction of dry paste, Wahlberg is worth rooting for.
I don’t want him to gamble anymore. I don’t want him to double down on 18’s anymore. I want him to get clean and sober and Say F you!
Add a sexy girlfriend who cares about the gambler for no explainable reason and you’ve got a sub plot that is compelling.
And then throw in a daddy like loan shark who speaks in deep philosophical tones as he tries to convince the gambler not to gamble, not to take money, to break his addiction, and you begin to fire on all celluloid cylinders.
While Wahlberg is solid, the two loan sharks are the more compelling characters.
They are the ying and yang of schiesters. One is black. One is white. One is gangster. One is more gentlemanly.
Frank is the father like, soliloquy ranting F you spewing loan shark. John Goodman delivers in a role that is charismatic.
The other piece of bread in this Shylock sandwich is Neville Baraka, a gangster not afraid to kill a gambler and everyone in his family. He beats the hell out of Wahlberg in an empty swimming pool.
Water and drowning is a constant theme in the Gambler.
Both these gangsters are prone to violence but each has a civil side. They promise to kill the Gambler, but they each tell him to pay his debt and quit gambling.
Sometimes a film is what it is. This one is a tension filled, fidget in your seat, hope you get out with your life kind of film.
If you want unicorns and rainbows, this film will leave you needing more unicorns and rainbows.
But it you want an entertaining 2 hours, where every scene is an electrified cloudy day that you simply want to escape from, this film is exactly what the weather man predicted.
The Gambler; what it lacks in smiles, it makes up for in despondency.
Life’s Crazy™