Croupier

Rating:
Summary: Clive Owen's debut finally re-released in the US!
Review: I've been looking for a commerically available Region 1 version of Croupier for quite some time now. I was so excited to see that its being re-released that I had to check other sources to make sure its not a glitch. But, yes indeed, Croupier is scheduled to be re-released March 9, 2004!

As for the film itself, this film introduced Americans to Clive Owen. It opened the doors for Clive's recent film roles in the BMW Films "The Hire," "Gosford Park," "Bourne Identity," "Beyond Borders" and upcoming starring role in "King Authur" (not to mention the James Bond rumors. I've also heard good things about the Brit TV miniseries "Second Sight.") Don't expect a Hollywood thriller here. This modern update of the film noir genre is shot to create disconnect and confusion, and the characters are gritty and flawed. The film centers around Jack Manfred, a struggling-writer-turned-card-dealer. Jack moves through his life like a ghost, detached and disinterested in the events of his own life. Alex Kingston's character Jani de Villiers enters his life and adds color to Jack's dark world. Jani is the femme fatale to Jack's postmodern hard-boiled hero, but I love that Jack and Jani's relationship does not develop in the way you would expect. Overall, an enjoyable film for indie film lovers and a must for Clive Owen fans.

Rating:
Summary: Intrigue, mystery, action, and great character study
Review: This hard boiled British film noir about a croupier in a London casino is destined to become a classic. With his slicked-back black hair and striking good looks, Clive Owen brings a cool, cynical, self-confident elegance to his role as Jack Manfred, a croupier (dealer) in a London casino. He's writing a novel and has been recommended to the job by his father, a South African gambler, who has raised Jack to know all the tricks of the trade. Jack has nothing but contempt for the gamblers who come to the casino to lose each night and expresses his hatred for cheaters. He, himself, takes pride in the fact that he never gambles, but as the plot moves forward, the audience watches him rationalize his own actions in regard to his relationships which pull him deeper and deeper into his own kind of gamble.

Three women play key roles in his life. There is his live-in girlfriend (Gina McKee) who works as a store detective. There is a fellow dealer (Kate Hardie an ex-prostitute and druggie. And, most importantly, there is Alex Kingston (the actress who plays Dr. Corday on ER) in the role as the femme fatale. There is intrigue, mystery, action, a great plot and -- most of all -- a wonderful character study as Jack starts to see himself as a character in his own novel and shares his own internal monologue through the discrete and effective use of voiceovers. Yes. As in other films of this type there are a few details of the plot that are never fully explained. And some of the British dialogue was a little too fast for my American ears. But the casino scenes sparkled, romantic scenes eluded sexual chemistry, and somehow I found myself identifying with Jack and all the workings of his mind. And, like other films in this genre, nothing is quite what it seems. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Nice British character study
Review: A nice British character study of a struggling writer, Jack Manfred, who goes back to his former love, being a croupier. He gets a job at a low-scale casino and decides to write a book about his own experience. His wife does not want him to lead the life of a croupier and, spurred on by an affair he is caught in, leaves him. Jack gets attached to a shady customer, who makes him an offer that might change his life.

Manfred has a priviledged perspective on gambling, being able to discern the psychological flaws of everyone around him, much like Matt Damon's character in Rounders (a cliché but interesting movie precisely because of that). In the same way, Croupier goes beyond the relatively simple story by having Manfred always narrating the events as he sees them in his own worldview. It provodes a lot more depth in his character and the movie in general.

Manfred is not a cruel character, but his love of croupier work, and how it intimately relates to his own life, gives him a detached quality. I would say he is definitely an egoist character, and has no qualms in examining moral issues dispassionately. Very refreshing.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, Virginia, there really is film noir past the 1940's !
Review: Stylish British flick. Jack Manfred (Clive Owen) has run out of money while struggling to write his first novel. (Shades of Sunset Blvd!)

He has experience as a croupier, a job he loathes, thanks to the influence of his father, a perennial flake who never runs out of big dreams, currently eking a living as a hotel bartender.

Jack is barely on speaking terms with him, alternatively disgusted and bemused by the old man's sleazyness. Nevertheless, he needs a job badly and so when his father informs him of an opening, he re-enters the nightlife world of London casinos, dealing cards to posh, well dressed suckers. "Welcome to the house of addiction." As Jack puts it.

However, unlike his father, Jack NEVER gambles , it's a point of pride with him. So what could possibly go wrong?

The answer of course is everything.

Starting with his first night on the job when he meets his half dressed sultry co-worker, Bella.

Bella: "How do I look?"
Jack : (Voice Over) LIKE TROUBLE!
Jack : "Fine."

We've got three (count 'em !) femme fatales, endearing and deadly in their own way, and cynically beautifull noir-loner speeches that sound as if they came out of Double Indemnity or The Maltese Falcon:

" The world breaks everyone. And afterwards, many are strong at the broken places. Those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave, impartially. If you are none of these things it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry."

And the plot twists on. . .

Rating:
Summary: A lot of hooh-hah about nothing
Review: Didn't get this at all. Must be a jazz thing, about the apotheosis of cool. Owen is not a hard man, he is your best friend's kid brother. He is milk and cookies.

This film got a retrospective showing at a West End indy rep with director Hodges pencilled in to talk about the trials and tribulations of getting the film made and distributed. I didn't attend. That's the kind of existential guy I am.

Rating:
Summary: Clive Owen steals the show
Review: Jack Manfred is a writer seeking to find the elusive inspiration required to pen his first novel. He hasn't always been a writer, however. Before sitting down in front of a word processor he experienced first hand the lure of the casino; his father traipsed around the world gambling away everything he had and often alienated his young son in the process. Now Manfred has settled down with his store detective girlfriend Marion and his Duran Duran hat and spends his time trying to put it all down on paper. The casino has different ideas for Jack, calling him back when his father pulls some strings and gets his son a job as a croupier in a London gaming house. Much like the alcoholic who continually hears the siren sound of the liquor bottle and the neighborhood bar, Manfred initially fights the impulse to return to dens of iniquity full of roulette wheels, chips, and lost souls looking to buck the odds. As much as Jack hates to admit it, he does have a mathematician's mind for gambling. During the interview for the job, he pulls chips off the felt and stacks them with the precision of a surgeon. Manfred can keep track of multiple bets with cool ease; can analyze the motives and psychologies of the gamblers sitting down at the table, all while keeping his mask of exterior detachment firmly in place. Obviously, and agonizingly, he gets the job.

It quickly becomes apparent to Jack that returning to the "house of addiction" poses numerous difficulties. Marion, at first enthused about her boyfriend's new job and big paycheck, begins to notice subtle changes in Jack after he begins work. Other employees at the casino exert their own nefarious influences on our hero, with one of the female croupiers luring Jack in with her wiles while a male croupier tempts Jack in a different way. One immutable rule of the house applying to all employees concerns gambling: don't do it. Obviously, the owners of the gaming house don't want chronic gamblers as employees because debts accrued at the tables will ultimately lead to stealing or cheating. Another rule concerns fraternization with customers and employees outside of the casino: again, don't do it. Knotty relationships with fellow workers can cause one to lose concentration or lead to nasty emotional blowups. Mixing things up with the punters can lead to scams and cheating.

Manfred, essentially an honest guy, manages to break nearly everyone of these rules in record time, although he does keep himself out of serious trouble until he meets a beautiful gambler by the name of Jani de Villiers. This woman attempts to lure Jack into a situation that could, and does, have serious and lingering problems of a decidedly life threatening nature. Through it all--the eventual blowup with Marion, the increasing problems with fellow employees, and the lure of Jani--Jack Manfred finally writes. He writes about his job as a croupier, about the lost souls swirling about the gaming tables, and he does it so well his book must surely lead to success and fame. Maybe.

"Croupier" is a wonderful effort from director Mike Hodges, the same bloke who did "Get Carter" way back in the day. The movie boasts Clive Owen as Jack Manfred, the stunningly gorgeous Alex Kingston in the role of punter supreme Jani de Villiers, and Gina McKee as Jack's straight arrow girlfriend Marion. Owen steals the show, as he should, in his role as the cynical, icy Jack Manfred. Our hero has a lot of personal problems--from his childhood difficulties dealing with a father addicted to gambling to attempting to change course and earn a living as a writer--and Owen believably pulls it all off. I read somewhere this actor is on the shortlist to fill the role of James Bond when Pierce Brosnan steps down, and I couldn't agree more with the choice. In fact, I noticed a striking resemblance between Owen and Sean Connery while watching "Croupier." Maybe it was some of this guy's mannerisms or his subtle charm, but whatever it was the comparison is a valid one. Heck, some of the interior shots of the casino where Jack works reminded me of an early James Bond film, with the snappy dialogue and expressive eye contact. I don't want to overemphasize Clive Owen, though. Alex Kingston does a bang up job as de Villiers, a woman so beautiful you can barely look at her without sunglasses. Even better, we get to see A LOT of Kingston in this role.

Performances are key to this film because the plot tends to confuse at points. After awhile, I quit trying to piece it all together and just sat back to enjoy Owen as he navigated through a host of personal problems. I wouldn't want to call "Croupier" a "slice of life" film, although it certainly fits that bill nicely. The movie isn't primarily about casinos either even though it does give the viewer great insight into the sordid world of gaming houses. "Croupier" is a film about Jack Manfred's personal pain and how he attempts to deal with it as an adult. He's an arrogant guy who thinks he can remove himself from the real world and its attendant problems--his voice-overs and mannerisms hint at his personal belief that HE is above petty problems faced by the mere mortals staring back at him over stacks of chips--but ends up enmeshed in numerous difficulties nonetheless because while he won't gamble at the tables, he does gamble in his personal life. Watch the movie to find out how Jack's risks lead to a major plot twist at the end of the film, and figure out for yourself whether he wins or loses.

Rating:
Summary: existential joe says: great lil indie sleeper
Review: i first saw mike hodges wonder croupier back in early 2001. it was released over in the states by the shooting gallery film series along with other lil gems like judy berlin, orphans, a time for drunken horses, etc. i really enjoyed all these films, but none more than croupier. this is some great neo-noir. dark, twisted, bleak; the setting is london, its seedy-underbelly, and i ask you, what better than a casino to illuminate a fake, phony, and fixed world...an apathetic one?

clive owen IS jack manfred, a struggling writer, jobless, who, on the advice of his down-in-his-luck-gambling father, takes a job at the golden lion casino, a middle-of-the-road establishment catering to all sorts of punters. at first, jack is hesitant. he's seen the casino life before, he's known all the punters, and as his monologues would suggest, he's a great chronicler of his surroundings. but he's wary at first, even if he knows he's the one controlling the game. he wants to be a writer. he quotes hemingway ('the world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are stronger at the broken places') and has a romantic girlfriend who wants to 'LIVE WITH A WRITER'. it seems everyone wants a little bit of this enigmatic man, jack manfred, or everyone wants to use him. and it becomes almost pointless to hate his detached voyeurism, his demeanor, because really, he seems the most honest man here.

in films the hero is a gambler, sticking out his neck out for whatever purpose is popular: justice, freedom, religion, truth...whatever. do you know any heroes like this; can you really see the difference in such a vain, phony world? the best people i've known have been either crazy or too depressed for words. and they aren't exactly a caterable bunch, eh? in jack's world, the real gritty one, conscience can't exist. only in the poor world can it thrive and only jack perhaps knows the price of money. but really, he's the most likable one here. he's honest.

incredibly well-acted, small budget indie sleeper. clive owen will stop your heart. nurtured by mike hodges, croupier is one of the best english films of the nineties and is reminiscent of another abrasive brit movie, naked (mike leigh).

can you be a gambling winner? can you be a conscientious croupier? or are they polar opposites until death?

Rating:
Summary: PM fable...Existential Thriller...
Review: This is the brilliant...as yet cult...movie where Clive Owen makes serious bones. Directed by Mike Hodges of GET CARTER fame (legendary,existential gangster epic starring Michael Caine as ruthless Limey-Mafia Enforcer),he and too-cool-for-school,Clive carve-out a cinematic fable about PM amorality and view-to-a-kill consciencelessness." Welcome to the House of(the Dead)addiction!" declares Jekyll-like Jack Manfred to Hyde-like Jake, THE CROUPIER, as he leads his UNDERGROUND MAN doppleganger(and viewer)into endless nights of the jaded Casino demi-monde.

"I don't gamble!" chants Jack/Jake,power-tripping DEALER playing god while tempting others to grovel. "You're my conscience," Owen pleads to Gina McKee playing guileless Marion Nell his Guardian Angel lover. [She is ex-detective and mall rent-a-cop who, threatening to "shop" him, is remorselessly forgotten after she is killed by unknown thugs.] Alex Kingston plays the mysterious JANI (double-faced seductress)who lures Jack unbenknownst into incest and complicity in Marion's murder.

Lastly, there's BELLA.Kate Hardie plays ex-prostitute and druggie cohort CROUPIER who...like Dracula... puts kiss of damnation on whatever's left of Clive's illusions of himself as man "beyond good and evil"and scorned weakness of GAMBLERS he mocks and provokes. Director Hodges employment of jaded greens;luminous blacks; and toilet-tile whites, to film his odyssey into PM's First Circle creates powerful ambience of despair that's similar to the final jolt in GET CARTER. Like Jack Carter,Jake Manfred is hot-to-trot pro; watching him in action(shuffling/dealing cards like a conjurer;copping chips like Midas hoarding gold)bedazzles. But that he is a LOSER,the film leaves little doubt. Godless "gamblers"...imagining they're WHEELS...find themselves spinning endlessly under reckoning glare of THE CROUPIER who is mankind's eternal foe, as he mockingly roles them as his undying dice...

Rating:
Summary: Film noir for the new millenium.
Review: What kind of people are these?"

"Drug dealers. Mostly people who work in the casino business."

"And the girls?"

"They're just girls."

"Croupier" is the kind of movie that instinctively understands that kind of dialogue, and, more importantly, what kind of story ought to surround it. It's British film noir, a slick, coolly haunting portrait of the gambling London underground. But the movie has a decidedly international feel - good film noir is good, national origin regardless.

But "Croupier" is better than that - an idealized version of the genre that seduces while it shocks. It plays itself as an easy mark, much like its protagonist, casino dealer Jack Manfred (Clive Owen) sees his clients as their grubby fingers plop chips onto the table.

But as the tense closing sequences, which play like the last blackjack game before bankruptcy, unfold, the mark becomes pretty clear. It's pleasurable to find disjointed fragments come together, but there's a deeper, more rattling effect at work from director Mike Hodges, who set the standard for British gangster flicks with "Get Carter" in 1971.

It opens with Jack, played by Owen with detached charm, struggling to make the right ends meet as a writer. A publisher wants a soccer novel, complete with blood, sex and drugs. Jack obliges but supplements his starving artist lifestyle as a croupier - that's dealer in American lingo - at the London-based Golden Lion casino.

Having excelled at it in South Africa, Jack knows this game. When he returns to the mirror-filled basement of the casino, his narration welcomes him back to "house of addiction." We come to learn what he's talking about. He's the son of a gambler, who seemingly hasn't made the right ends meet once in life. Jack won't gamble, can't gamble - it's against the croupier rules. There's other rules to which Jack commits himself. And then, one by one, he breaks them.

Screenwriter Paul Mayersburg populates the scene with the typical noirish fare - a faithful girlfriend (Gina McKee), a troublemaker (Kate Hardie), a mystery woman (Alex Kingston). Jack begins to write a casino novel and croupier named Jake; the two personas begin to blur.

"Croupier" makes much of the two ends of gambling addiction - indeed, in Jake's mind, the only two personalities in life - that of the gambler and the croupier. Gamblers have hope. Croupiers have odds. Gamblers have superstitions. Croupiers have rules. Gamblers lie. And under most circumstances, croupiers, good ones anyway, certainly do not. Just how that figures into the central sequence of the film, how morality can honestly fit into a immoral situation, is best discovered on your own. But the repercussions of that scene are stark. And then a final twist, a big javelin right into the heart of the plot, puts the pieces in place. Better yet, it reveals all the pieces that didn't seem to exist.

My favorite movies are these - the kind that wants it both ways and gets what it wants. Owen gives a fine performance - some have hailed him as a good candidate for James Bond movies - but his best work is to stay solid and move within the plot, rather than overshadow it. McKee is appropriately put-upon as the girlfriend, while Hardie, who plays a dealer named Bella, gamely plays the fringe character who "used to be in the game."

The real difference maker is Hodges, who understands noir is best filmed without snappy editing tactics and inhabiting a world where nearly everyone smokes their own brand of cigarette. His camera plays fine tricks with the casino mirrors and drab, dead-looking flats.

It's that little film of sleaze that hangs over every scene that completes the portrait. Characters speak lines like they've spoken them before, playing the same game with new faces that turn out to be old faces. I could spend all day with them, right through the moment they robbed me blind.

Rating:
Summary: Oh no ! Will I be sad if I watch the DVD version ?
Review: I rented this film as a VHS and was astounded ! It is definitely one of my all time favorite movies. I added the DVD to my collection right away -- but I haven't viewed it yet. (I thought I'd save it for a special treat.)

After reading the reviews at Amazon, I'm scared to look at the DVD version, lol. Who could have toyed with the sequence of scenes that unfold one after another like cards being upturned on the table ?

I'm not one to latch on to a movie star, but I am a big fan of Clive Owen after seeing this and "Gosford Park". I can't wait to see "Beyond Borders", too. (The Paramount site for that film isn't working right, does anyone know how to email Paramount ?)

Also, does anyone have specifics on what was lost in the transfer to DVD ? Sounds like I'll have to purchase the VHS. Thanks for your reviews of this one of a kind enthralling movie experience.