Rating: Summary: Excellent movie Review: Anyone who has ever walked in to a high stakes poker game (especially when they did not belong) can truly appreciate this movie. The director does a great job of making you feel the joys of the winning hands, along with the pain of the losing ones. The first scene where Damon goes bust still has me hoping he wins, even though I have seen the movie atleast ten times. Damon is good as expected, but the real gems of this movie are the supporting roles. Edward Norton plays the part of Worm to perfection, Malkovich is great as a Russian mobster (go figure), and John Torturro puts in a good turn as the "Grinder". Even the cops in the bllodbath scene do a great job of showing the facial expressions a true poker player can spot a mile away. One of the best of the year.
Rating: Summary: Rounders Review: This fascinating look at high stakes and high quality poker gave me a look at a subculture I've never seen before. Matt Damon is wonderful as a poker genius who becomes more congruently himself as the film goes on. John Malkovich is brilliant as a Russian mob guy. I loved watching it wondering what I would do if I played poker.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Movie. Review: This is an excellent movie with great performances by the actors. It is not the dirty gambling that everybody knows, it is a movie of the clean way of gambling. Honesty and friendship are two messages conveyed by the director in a very clever way. Look specificaly in the scene where John Malkovich pays him all the money Matt made just because he won playing clean with no cheats, this is honesty. One could not beleive that a mafia man could pay after that incredible gambling night! You can see friendship expressed clearly when Matt always helped Edward with his problems. This is a movie that deservers two thumbs up (I wished I had more).
Rating: Summary: i hate putting one-line summaries Review: unrealistic, but very entertaining. hip use of poker/gambling jargon. by the way, what's everyone got against matt damon?
Rating: Summary: Ultimate Gambling Movie Review: This is the quintessential gambling movie. The poker scenes are the most clever and suspenseful I've seen yet, there is a surprisingly stellar cast (Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, John Turturro, Martin Landau), and the dialogue is really tight. However, I think the key to this film are the tight performances by the allstar cast. Damon and Norton are truly the leaders of their generation, and character actors Malkovich, Turturro and Landau are great as always. It'll be hard not to practising poker for a couple of weeks after seeing this film.
Rating: Summary: IS IT AN ADDICTION? Review: Is gambling to the extreme a kind of pathological addiction? Not necessarily, accoring to this excellent film. Pros view it as a test of skill with higher and higher feats to accomplish, the ultimate here being the world series of poker.Great performanes by all, including the key one by Matt Damon (despite the comment below) and, of course, John Torturo. John Malkovich, not my favorite actor, does a super job here in a role suited to his acting style and typical screen personality. KGB, the Russian immigrant he plays, is truly ruthless. Edward Norton is also superb as the weak kneed poker player friend who refuses to stop being a "mechanic" (a skilled cheat) even though he could risk great personal injury as it does happen. The two poker sequences with KGB at the beginning and the end are masterpieces of suspense, acting, and direction. The love interest is thankfully down played.
Rating: Summary: Made me want to play Poker Review: over all a great movie, really made me apretiate the intricacies of poker
Rating: Summary: A Film Which Exceeded My Expectations! Review: "Rounders" is far from the first film I have bought without having seen it first, though certainly one of the few where my decision to do so was not based on it containing one or more of my favourite actors. The risk paid off handsomely, as this film, revolving entirely round the game of poker with which I am totally unfamiliar, was entertaining and even gripping to the last. If I feel like going off to make something to eat during a movie on video, then it has not held my attention despite my love of film, and therefore is a failure. No chance here, my ignorance on the subject matter was irrelevant as the film was not designed to go over my head and the acting was compelling. I agree the characters were not well fleshed out, but I still felt a degree of empathy which made me very interested in the outcome, which again the film cleverly made less obvious than you might expect. To the reviewer who said forget Matt Damon, either this was jealousy or you were not concentrating, he made me care what happened to him; a good choice, a nice surprise, buy it and you'll see why!
Rating: Summary: Great gambling-movie with an excellent cast Review: With such a cast, containing Academy Award nominee Edward Norton, Academy award winner Matt Damon and the fabulous John Malkovich this movie had to be great, and it was. It's amazing, actually, that the director manages to keep us interested for 120 minutes, because let's face it; it's just poker, right? But there's more to it than that - it really portraits the gambler in a very good way and lets the viewer share the excitement of "high stakes". One thing though is what happens to Worm (Norton) in the end, that's the only thing I miss to make this a 5'er And I thought poker was just luck - I had it all wrong; see for yourself.
Rating: Summary: I agree...don't let Damon turn you off Review: Great versimilitude to the underworld of poker playing as well as a palatable plot lay the groundwork for an enjoyable movie. However, it is Norton's effortless scene stealing that make this movie recommendable. He is easily become one of the best actors of his generation, and although he outmatches Damon, he is talented enough to assimilate his role with well-paced adroitness, rather than affecting what could easily have been a pedantic performance.
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