The Gambler (Rupert Wyatt)

[Henry Gale]

http://www.impulsegamer.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Australia_Payoff_1_Sheet-659x1024.jpg

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/) / Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gambler_%282014_film%29)

[Henry Gale]

It's one of those cases where I'm not sure if something simply plays like a sort of movie I like, or actually is one.

I've never seen the original, and maybe even more than the by-gone era of films like this being consistently made in the studio system, its legacy might have faded as a result of it no longer having films touting it with spiritual successors as I'm not sure I even knew of it before hearing this was the remake.

Wyatt definitely exhibits more style here than with his Apes film (where the banality of his style was one of my biggest issues), there are lots of nice little flourishes packed into it (as superficial as they may be, they're still pretty, enticing and even emotionally grabbing), the music, helped scored by Jon Brion, is great (even when its soundtrack selections are overly on the nose, or at its worse, helping to overuse M83's "Outro" even more than all the trailers out there) and as someone who never really buys Wahlberg as an actor, this might be the most impressive he's ever been for me on screen. Not that the character is a super fleshed out, multi-dimensional person on the page or as the film manages to portray him, but his performance at least brings it to the point where you can totally buy his broken psyche and the duality of his professorial dissections of everything paired with his nihilism-fueled addiction. But then you have someone as reliably fantastic as Brie Larson given very little to do. There's one scene where she zones out to Pulp's "Common People" in slow motion while walking through her campus, and the amount of life and charisma she exudes there alone is sadly missing from any dialogue or characterization she's given elsewhere.

It's a hard thing to recommend because it's not remarkable in any large swathes, but in enough spurts along the way, because of the direction being more inspired than not, the base details of the story being interesting enough to want to probe, and the performances from people like John Goodman, Michael K. Williams and Domenick Lombardozzi (a David Simon trio!), it's got enough meat to give into any curiosities you may have about it. It struggles to a distinctively interesting conclusion, and you wonder if there's just tons of material missing as it brushes past certain things (and certain talent like Andre Braugher showing up for maybe 30 seconds), but as it is, it's enough, and sometimes, that's fine.

**½ / 6.1

[TGM]

The trailers make this look like your typical Mark Whalberg January release, which has left me confused as to how it got a Christmas release date. I'll probably check it out at some point, though.

Edit: Yup, pretty much just a typical Whalberg January movie, lol. :P

[Henry Gale]

The trailers make this look like your typical Mark Whalberg January release, which has left me confused as to how it got a Christmas release date. I'll probably check it out at some point, though.

Edit: Yup, pretty much just a typical Whalberg January movie, lol. :P

The only thing about that is that releasing it now gives it the false aura of something more important and potentially awards-considerable to the public. It's essentially taking the Wolf of Wall Street slot from last Christmas, only considerably less crowd-pleasing because its lead character does the exact opposite things with his attained riches and makes for much more downer of an audience conduit.

If it had been marketed the way those lighter, more base emotion-thrilling January action releases he's had in recent years, it may have made more money, but it would've hurt his brand with the people that might love those.

As a movie, this continues to sit right on the edge of "kind of a waste" and "interesting enough" in my mind.

[Irish]

- "From the writer of a The Departed" feels misleading, somehow.

- I feel like I've already seen this movie just from looking at the poster.

[Dukefrukem]

How's the original? It's on Netflix- was gonna watch it tonight but I watched Wolf Creek 2 instead.

[DavidSeven]

It's pretty well paced but that's about the only real positive that jumps out at me. It's a total studio movie, even though the subject matter and small scale begs for indie sensibilities and more risks. This is pretty rote and tame. Soft R sensibility for something that probably should be Hard R.

I'm with Henry on this: song choices were pretty hackneyed. Not sure if Jon Brion or some college kid scoring his crappy YouTube compilation.