THE GAMBLER (Karel Reisz, 1974) R

Reviewed: June 3, 2002

The Gambler plays like a time capsule of a forgotten culture (1970s, USA) dominated by sleaze, uncertainty, drugs, paranoia and violence. Reminiscent of Taxi Driver though incomparable in quality (Taxi Driver is one of the ten greatest films ever made, The Gambler is merely quite good), both are character studies which follow young, reticent, disturbed males through a seedy NYC world as their emotional crises free-fall them to burn out. There's only one love interest in each film, and in both cases the role is slight and undeveloped, present only to enhance the protagonists' characterizations. Plus both movies feature a negligible plot as their screenwriters favor largely episodic structures.

Specifically, The Gambler tracks James Caan as a literature professor/compulsive gambler in debt forty-four grand. What's interesting about James Toback's script is that getting the money isn't Caan's problem, keeping it is. Unrelentingly self-destructive, Caan's character is not only gambling with money, he's gambling with his health, with his relationships and ultimately with his life. The movie understands that gambling is an addiction as powerful as drugs or alcohol. There's an unmistakable integrity and rare realism to the pic (Toback knows his terrain; The Gambler is substantially autobiographical), with a few particular sequences generating more genuine suspense than almost anything I've seen of late.

Main problem with The Gambler, however, is the acting is on the soft side. Caan is mediocre in a difficult role and Lauren Hutton as the aforementioned love interest is pretty awful (again though, to be fair her role is wildly underwritten).

The Gambler's resolution is daringly oblique but I found it to be the perfect emotional capper to an always challenging film.

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