Rounders Movie Review: How a Poker Film Sparked a Global Boom

4 out of 5 stars

Many will argue that poker is not a sport. Many will say poker is all luck. The first statement can be debated, but there is no debate on the second one. Like Matt Damon says to his girlfriend Jo in Rounders during an argument, “It is a skill game, Jo. Why don’t you understand that?”

Full disclosure: There is no movie I have seen more times in my lifetime than Rounders, and that includes all the Rocky movies, combined. And that is saying something, because I love Rocky. I’d say I’ve watched Rounders over 100 times, conservatively. And it’s not because it is a great movie, it is because it is so quotable and the characters are so memorable. And, of course, there is John Malkovich as KGB, one of my favorite movie characters of all time.

There are flaws. Perhaps the most glaring one to me is (SPOILER ALERT) in the final scene when Mike McDermott wins all the money he owes his Russian mafia counterpart, he decides to put it all back on the line because KGB is egging him on. Why not just pay the bad guys back, save himself a beating, and return in a week or two to continue their match? Bad judgment.

There is also a scene near the end that bugs me every time I watch it. Mikey and his leech of a friend, Worm, just finished getting beat up and are thrown out into the parking lot after getting caught cheating playing some cops (“municipal workers” as Worm referred to them). Their faces get split open, and they are squirming, moaning, and groaning on the ground, virtually on the fringes of consciousness. Suddenly, in a horrible film edit, the two are standing arguing, coherently, as if the fight never happened.

The movie could have also done with less of the university and romance plot lines. Gretchen Mol’s Jo character is more of a drag on the movie than anything else. Fortunately, halfway through, she jets. “I always told her she’d make a good poker player and know when to get rid of a bad hand.” She should have folded sooner.

There are some other continuity issues. When Worm gets “a jump” out of jail, he reluctantly gives back the “smokes” that he won in a card game. One of the prisoners lights a cigarette as he warns Worm that he shouldn’t add insult to injury. “That shit will come back to haunt you.”

That line seems to portend something later in the movie regarding this inmate. Alas, this is the last we see of that prisoner with the smug look, but it has always bothered me that there was supposed to be something more to that threat. I am pretty sure that in the extended cut DVD there are scenes that got cut involving a further plot line with this inmate.

That also leads to one last laughable scene when Worm is in jail, standing at the discharge window, retrieving his possessions. After receiving seemingly everything, Worm says, “Where’s the rest?” He is then handed a plastic bag with a single, presumably used, toothpick. “Thank you,” Worm says as he scoops up the bag and leaves. Couldn’t he just buy some new toothpicks once he got on the outside?

Now for all the good stuff. The movie Rounders came out in 1998, but it didn't really become popular until an unknown named Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003. That World Series was shown prominently on ESPN and gained a following. Watching a guy-next-door with a great name win the World Series of Poker after gaining entry online with a miniscule investment led to a poker explosion in popularity. Online poker sites like PokerStars, PartyPoker, and FullTilt Poker exploded with people hoping to be the next Moneymaker. I admit I was one of them. I quit my job and played online poker professionally for five years before the government shut down the sites to American players on April 15, 2011 (yes, I will always remember the exact date).

I must have watched this movie 100 times in the background while I was multi-tabling online poker for those five years. I can go years without watching the movie, but know every line the next time I see it.

All the characters, with the exception of the college students, are amazing. You have Matt Damon and Ed Norton as the two main characters and they have an amazing chemistry. You could easily imagine them being friends off screen. Though he appears only in the opening and closing scenes, John Malkovich is the MVP of the movie. His memorable quotes to onscreen time ratio is probably unparalleled in movie history.

There is John Turturro playing the role of the conservative poker pro “grinder” who never overextends himself and plays to pay for rent and alimony, not to chase “pipe dreams” of winning millions in Vegas. There is Famke Janssen, before she rose to fame in X-Men, who plays the femme fatale who constantly flirts with and, at the same time, looks out for McDermott.

There is Michael Rispoli, who a few years later would play a Godfather in The Sopranos HBO TV series, playing a low level thug who tries to collect on Worm’s, and later McDermott’s, debt.

Tom Aldredge would also later play a role in The Sopranos as Tony's father-in-law, but here plays Judge Marinacci in a small, but memorable role.

Martin Landau plays an important role as a life mentor to McDermott and ultimately loans him a large sum of money to help him get started on paying off his debt.

One of my favorite comedians, Lenny Clarke, plays a small role as one of the regulars at the local card game.

It is, truly, an impressive lineup of heavy hitters.

The soundtrack adds to the vibe of the movie. Again, after having heard the music hundreds of times, it is ingrained in my brain. It is haunting and synonymous with the film.

The cinematography is also impressive. The closeups of Damon and Malkovich as they play their life or death matches contributes to the tension of the scenes. The different sets for various scenes, from school basketball courts to Turkish bathes to Mikey’s apartment to Atlantic City casinos are just mesmerizing.

Then, there is the dialogue. The dialogue is what wins the movie. There are so many quotable lines.

Most of them belong to KGB. Almost everything he says in the movie I find myself repeating in everyday life. But it is not only him, Damon and Norton, as well as Turturro ("I hope you are not planning on putting all that glimmer in play") and Landau ("for that, I owe"), have their fair share of memorable lines.

For all its flaws, Rounders remains one of my favorite, and my most watched, movies of all time. It captures the essence and the dangers of the game of poker to a tee. It promotes the game as one that skill can overcome luck. It is a thinking man’s game.

The movie focuses more on the body language ("tells") component – the way one eats their Oreo cookies, for example – of the game, as opposed to the percentages and numbers aspect of the game - which can be boring, but is necessary for a successful poker player to understand.

Just like Rocky inspired a generation of would-be boxers, Rounders gave poker players a film that captured the true exhilaration of the game.

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