‘There’s a weight a man can accrue…’
Paul Schrader is a writer and director who has never been afraid to explore the dark corners of life. The guy wrote Taxi Driver for chrissakes. With The Card Counter, Schrader brings us a story of trauma and torture in the trojan horse of a buddy movie about playing cards. And it’s so close to being great…
William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is a career card player with a shadowy past. When he agrees to help a troubled young man (Tye Sheridan) to pay off his considerable debts through winning poker tournaments, both men will enter the heart of darkness. Along for the ride are fellow gambler La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) and sadistic army general Gordo (Willem Dafoe).
Unsurprisingly, Schrader evokes the gritty, character driven thrillers of the 1970s, and Isaac is the perfect choice to carry that aesthetic. The first half of the movie is an enjoyable if pretty standard road movie which sees the three main characters trading barbs and winning card games. There is a lingering darkness in these early moments though, and this gloom comes to the fore in the third act. While it’s an admirably ambitious change in tone, it also jars with what has come before. But perhaps that is the point. Schrader has never been a filmmaker who wants his audience to sit comfortably in their seat.
The Card Counter is a film that grapples with moral responsibility, much as many of Schrader’s previous film’s have also. In the end, it’s a good film, but not a classic.