The Gambler
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Movie Reviews of The Gambler
Movie Review: A sure thing
Summary: 5 Stars
A neglected and underrated masterpiece, presenting one of the most convincing and thorough psychological studies in all cinema. James Caan, in what may well be his best-ever performance, portrays a compulsive gambler with an unusually acute awareness of his own motivations. The 'back story', from which we learn how his family background helps feed his obsession, is subtly and convincingly portrayed. The whole is a tragedy, laced with grim humor.The score uses Mahler's music to great effect, the direction is tight and closely focused throughout and the final scene can only be described as perfection.
Movie Review: Give Me The Three
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best movies about gambling and gambling addiction ever made. Cann is as intense as Sonny Corleone but he's not doubling down in his family's casino. When he loses, we fill it. When people mention movies made in the 1970s this should be at the top of the list. If you don't know what a 70s ending is then watch this film.Movie Review: A true classic.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have watched this movie at least a dozen times and will definitely watch it again. James Caan does a great job and the movie adds a lot of insight to the demons that addicts deal with.Movie Review: The Thrill of it All
Summary: 4 Stars
James Caan was in some of the hardest hitting films by some of the hardest hitting directors of the seventies and early eighties including Coppola's Godfather I(72), Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (75)and Michael Mann's Thief (81). He also played a number of athlete roles, including Rollerball(75). Whether he's playing an athlete or not Caan moves like an athlete, and he gets jumpy if he has to sit still for too long, and so he's interesting to watch even when he's just crossing the street because its like he's always on the scent of something, always on the prowl.
In the opening scenes of Gambler (74) Caan is playing the tables in an all-night casino and losing one hand after another. By morning, as he's driving home, he realizes he has lost 44,000 dollars. But the jumpy Caan still hasn't been satisfied and when he sees some teens playing basketball he stops his car and hustles up a game. They only have ten bucks but thats enough. It's the thrill of the game and the thrill of the bet that turns him on and he really comes to life on the courts.
His real job we soon find out is pretty high class. He's a college English professor who lectures on Dostoyevsky and the failed/corrupted/compromised American dream (good solid early 70's staple topic that last one). And he does it really well. He's certainly not your usual professor because its obvious just by looking at him and listening to him that he's more physycal than mental and he's actually interested in the thrill of living life and not the agony of writing books about it. Caan's "Axel Freed" is a guy who has seen a lot and done a lot and his students appreciate that he's not a guy who spends his afternoons in the library. But where he does spend his afternoons and evenings is getting him in deep trouble.
The gambling problem seems to stem from the fact that he's never really escaped from the safe confines and purse strings of his social class and this embarrases him and makes him feel inauthentic and unmanly. Its like he was born to a reality or class that never fit, and he's been trying to return to his rightful home (the streets, the basketball courts, the tennis courts, the boxing ring) ever since. Money has always stood between Axel Freed and the life he imagines tobe his own. Even when at home with his lady he can't stand still; he's perpetually shadow boxing in the mirror and perusing the sports page and ringin' up his bookie. Day to day, moment to moment, he lives for the thrill of those last seconds of a game when his whole life depends on whether the basketball will or will not go in. Watching him take incredible risks is painful because we fear where it will all lead, but its also exhilerating.
Caan is tough in The Gambler, no doubt, but the role of Axel Freed allows him to stretch and show that he can play not only a physical guy but a physical guy with a lot going on in his head. Its a pleasure to see James Caan sitting in front of an English class lecturing to a group of attentive students about why man does not always follow the dictates of reason. "Reason," Axel reads from his copy of Dostoyevsky, "satisfies our rational requirements, but desire encompasses everything." What makes this especially interesting is that we know Axel Freed isn't just some egghead with a set of theories but that he's taking his lessons from real life.
Axel seems to have a great job and a great sexy girlfriend (Lauren Hutton) but its just not enough to keep his attention; he needs that extra adrenalin rush that only extreme situations that sports and gambling and pushin' the bounds of reason can provide.
The film reminds me of Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces but its much grittier and the ending is so unexpected and raw that many may be turned off by it but it has the advantage of giving you a final glimpse of this character that you are not likely to forget.
Unexpected ending but hits right where it should.
If you wanted to you could probably analyze this film from a number of angles. One being that modern man just isn't satisfied living in his settled society doing mundane tasks but then that might sound too academic and too trite and thats just what Axel's trying to escape from.
O yes the film is like a yearbook of seventies actors as there are about fifteen recognizable faces in supporting roles: including Lauren Hutton as girlfriend, Paul Sorvino as bookie, Huggie Bear as a pimp, and James Woods as a snotty bank clerk who Caan has to rough up.
Karel Reisz was himself a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia. He fled to the UK to escape the Holocaust so the story of Axel Freed's uncle is especially interesting in that light. Reisz also directed another tremendous seventies film called Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) based on Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers and starring Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld.
Movie Review: When hopelessly addicted to all kinds of bets
Summary: 4 Stars
THE GAMBLER (1974), is a passive, visual movie, with the one and
only James Caan, who plays an English Literature professor, who
comes to believe as reality the poetry, artistic thoughts and
beliefs he teaches to his classroom of students. The theory is that
2+2 is not 4, it's more than that, and life shouldn't be spent
counting the minutes, hours down, but rather pushing the envelope,
taking risks and enjoying the ride, the thrills while it lasts.
As such, Caan's character "in theory" realizes he's a compulsive
gambler, hopelessly addicted to all kinds of bets on all kinds of
activities, his life hanging by a thread, and jeopardizing not only
the love, respect of his family and girlfriend, but their
psychological and physical well-being through a wreckless behavior
that sees him lose thousands of dollars. The difficulty for Caan, is
accepting his "theoretical addition" as "reality" and as a
"objective, externally verifiable and observable fact".
Clearly, Caan is at his peak, physically and mentally. The actor
shows his characteristic relaxed, subtle, self-contented, easy going
and confident demeanor, until unique circumstances occur, requiring
agression, physical exertion, which he delivers when called on.
The film prominently features a Ford Mustang convertible in over 1/3
of the film.
The whole gamut of individuals implicated in gambling as an industry
is shown, from collectors of illegal debts, to loan sharks (at 3%
per week or 12O% annual interest), casinos, bookies, pimps,
narco-traffickers, etc.
Caan reflects on his inability to face or control his gambling
addiction, with words such as " I can't lose. Why? I'm hot as a
pistol, and I am the one placing the bets!"
There are a number of smart quips, such as "I've seen nuts before,
but you've got a watermelon" as scruples; or Caan's Dad, commenting
on his girlfriend: "a man of virtue and character would not take
that woman as your wife, she's a playboy's girl".
In his subconscience, apart from the compulsion, Caan perhaps feels
that those who lack all addictions in their personalities are
boring, unpopular, don't know how to enjoy themselves, or so goes
the poetry he reads, taking what was imaginary as reality, and
dropping into an abyss of debt, addiction, low self-worth,
irrationality, confusion, loss of direction, suicidal behavior.
Some curious aspects are typical from the 7O's, namely sideburns,
large US cars, and the courtesy, politeness and amicable human
interaction between strangers in restaurants, at the table, etc,
which seems to have been lost 30 years later, too often, at least in
the movies.
Sorvino plays a mobster, involved in the bookie and loan sharking
activities, with a modicum of patience and humanity with the
debtors.
The soundtrack is adequate and low profile.