The Gambler

The first sounds we hear in The Gambler is a spinning roulette wheel and the ticking of a clock.  We'll hear both sounds many times during the course of the film, as its lead character, Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) doesn't know when to stop gambling.  He's the sort of guy who gets in trouble with loan sharks, and when somebody gives him money to bail him out, he bets all that money and loses it all.

This is an odd movie to release at Christmas time.  It's a remake of a 1974 film that starred James Caan in the lead role, and while this is not quite the film that was, it's not a terrible movie.  Just a somewhat unnecessary one.  Jim owes a lot of money to two different men.  One of them is Frank (John Goodman), who recognizes Jim's problem, and tries to help him realize it, while also insisting he gets paid.  The other is Neville (Michael Kenneth Williams), who is not afraid to have his goons rough up Jim.  He is running out of places to turn.  There's his mother (Jessica Lange), but she has had it with his behavior.  In one of the film's best moments, she withdraws over $200,000 to help pay off her son's debts.  When she hands him the money, there are tears in her eyes.  She does not trust her son, and she knows what's going to happen.  Indeed, he turns right around, and gambles away the whole amount instead of paying off his debts.

The Gambler could have been a provocative look at a person who does not know when to stop or quit when he is ahead.  It's a problem that affects many people, and a hard-nosed film looking at the problem would have been fascinating.  Unfortunately, the movie chooses to keep us at a distance from the characters.  Not as bad as Unbroken, mind you, but still enough to notice a lot of missed potential.  We know that Jim clearly has a problem, but it's never quite explored.  Likewise, he has a job as a literature professor at a local college, and strikes up a relationship with a pretty young student (Brie Larson).  Again, while the performances by Wahlberg and Larson are fine, they don't get a lot of scenes together, and we're constantly kept at a distance from the characters.

This hurts the film dramatically.  We know that Jim could have a better life with this woman if he could just realize what is in front of him and stop throwing every cent he earns away, but because of the somewhat emotionally cold screenplay by William Monahan (The Departed), it doesn't hit home as strong as it should.  The movie comes across simply as a story of a man who never learns from his mistakes, nothing more.  There are some great moments throughout that hint at a much better film.  Aside from the scene I mentioned earlier with Lange, Goodman stands out whenever he is on camera.  The gambling scenes also manage to be really intense, especially when Jim just keeps on playing, and we know it's only a matter of time until he loses it all.

The Gambler is not exactly a failure, and I'm not sorry I saw it.  But, I can't exactly call it a full success, either.  You can see a lot of potential throughout, but the movie keeps on selling itself short by never going as deep into its subject matter as it should.  It's a fairly minor release that's bound to get swallowed up at the box office this holiday.  It's just as well.  This is the kind of movie that will probably play better on TV.

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