Grade: B-
75-year-old Paul Schrader’s directing credits include Auto Focus, Affliction, Light of Day, and American Gigolo. His writing credits include City Hall, The Last Temptation of Christ, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver. He is back, as writer/director of The Card Counter. Oscar Isaac plays the titular character. I have seen him before, in the recent Star Wars films and Inside Llewyn Davis. I’ve also heard him, as the voice of Gomez in 2019’s animated Addams Family reboot. But I never really remembered him. That will change now. I like what he brings to his starring role here. With his no-nonsense curt, frosty, douchey demeanor and slicked back salt-and-pepper hair, he reminded me of a younger George Clooney or Kyle MacLachlan.
He plays William Tell, a gambler recently out of prison and back on the casino trail. He comes across a young man named Cirk (pronounced “Kirk”), who is seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past – a retired military major played by Willem Dafoe, a regular in Schrader’s films. The other key player is the gambling financier La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), who helps Tell out with things that both include and don’t include money.
Watching The Card Counter made me think of a film from 2001 – David Mamet’s Heist. Like Heist, The Card Counter is perpetually to-the-point and all rat-a-tat business, and it never loosens up and becomes a movie to relax to. It’s like being at work, albeit a good day at work. Everything is at one mundane level and stays there. The film doesn’t breathe. I wouldn’t bet on award nominations for Oscar Isaac here (the performance isn’t flashy enough), but he is effective in a cool and intense way. Tye Sheridan as Cirk and Tiffany Haddish bring a fine onscreen rapport with Isaac. Willem Dafoe doesn’t have enough screen time to make a judgment on the performance either way, but he is one of my favorites and always welcome – and his presence in the advertisements here helped bring me to the cinema.
The Card Counter feels like a mental image of the boring grownup movies your parents and their friends like to watch while you were a child. I wanted to love it, given some of the talent behind it, and the subject matter. It is a collection of nice individual moments in search of a movie that takes off.
Grade: B-
Film Reviews by Mark 
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