Film Review: The Card Counter
Images courtesy of Focus Features.
Interesting plots do not always lead to incredible movies. Interesting movies? Sure, why not… I mean, a movie about a cow turning into cheese is interesting – but imagine it being good.
The Card Counter is an exceptionally packed movie, one starring Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe and with help behind the scenes from Martin Scorsese. It’s just a jaw-dropping shame that this is the movie to teach us all that even the greats have their off days.
The Card Counter seems to struggle with what us experts would call ‘a consistent plotline’. I don’t know where the sudden mid-plot focus on Guantanamo Bay came from, but I was certainly there for it. I’ve seen my fair share of mind-numbing yet visceral war centric movies, yet somehow a movie based on a psychopathic card counter who’s spent 10+ years in prison doesn’t quite evoke the same reaction when ‘Gitmo’ is name dropped… The Card Counter isn’t bad, but boy does this puppy wield a sizeable sense of self-worth.
Oscar Isaac as William Tell does great wonders for Isaac’s portfolio. For people who didn’t know he could wipe all of the emotion out of his repertoire, here’s the movie for you! It’s not a bad thing… in some scenes, I could genuinely say that he’s a formidable screen presence, even amongst such recent introverted greats as Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, or Jessie Eisenber’s Zuckerberg. But Tye Sheridan’s Cirk, Isaac’s ride along for much of the movie in a protégé/mentor relationship, is a complete drag for the entire duration. What could’ve been a fun another classic bromance turns into a situation where one party is drastically outperforming the other in the acting department…
Cirk is a plot-driver and nothing more. His mysterious absences from the screen pay no mind to a viewer busy watching William count cards – even Cirk was, his character has such a miniscule arc to the point where writers neglected even giving him a surname. This isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker – I’m not going to walk out of a movie just because I don’t know someone’s full birth-name – but there’s a particular point mid-way through The Card Counter where Cirk tells William that accompanying him to countless casinos feels repetitive and boring…
For just a split second the fourth wall shattered, and I was fully immersed in the movie, because I genuinely related to what Cirk was saying… The Card Counter is itself a boring and repetitive experience…
The Card Counter is showing in cinemas from Thursday 2nd December.