The Card Counter

(2021 / USA, UK, China / Directed by Paul Schrader)

William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is a drifter who spends his life driving from one casino to the next, ordering double whiskeys neat and slipping in and out of card tables with barely conspicuous purpose. A master card counter with a foolproof system for winning, he’s figured out how to work the scene while flying under the radar. He’s not averse to dropping by a gambling palace in Atlantic City, but mostly he takes advantage of Middle America’s suburban fun parlors with names like “The Golden Nugget.” And as he tells one character, the house really doesn’t care if you count cards and win. It just doesn’t want you winning too much.

What starts as a pretty good poker movie, of course, is not just a poker movie. It’s a Paul Schrader movie, which means it’s got much more on its mind than watching a straight flush beat a full house. Told with the director’s trademark intensity, the film sets up a revenge story centered on an issue that’s like a scar on our national psyche. William, as it turns out, is a former military man who participated in the “enhanced interrogations” of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. As he comes to terms with his past, he becomes entwined with an unconventional cast of characters, who are brought to life by Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and Willem Dafoe. Playful in form, The Card Counter develops a destabilizing rhythm and pressure as it lunges forward before unraveling in a riveting spiral of spirit and flesh, sin and redemption, love and death.  

R / 1 hr 51 mins.

R / 1 hr 51 mins.