: Rounders
Author: David Levien & Brian Koppelman
Director: John Dahl
Interesting movie. It’s about a law student, played by Matt Damon, who’s into poker. Making a living at poker is called "rounding" (hence the title). He’s good at it — says that card-playing has nothing to do with luck, it’s mostly skill. Shades of his math genius character from Good Will Hunting, but not so smart. His dream is to play at the World Series Poker Championships in Las Vegas, but he loses his stake in a game with a Russian mobster (an excellent John Malkovich). Swearing to his girlfriend he’s done with poker for good, he of course falls back into it, encouraged by his hard-luck childhood friend (an awesome Edward Norton) just out of jail with debts to pay. Trying to help his friend, he gets deep in debt, and with his back against the wall he’s got to play his way out, challenging the Russian mobster again. The basic "moral" is that this is what he was born to do — he must live out his dream or be unhappy. Good, low key, a lot of bad language, and some terrific acting.
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