Director: Rupert Wyatt
Talent: Mark Wahlberg, Jessica Lange, Brie Larson, John Goodman
Release Date: 23rd January 2015
A remake of the 1974 film of the same name — a semi-autobiography fused with the Dostoyevsky novel — now passed through Hollywood, Rupert Wyatt’s The Gambler is as muddled as its past and totally out of touch with the original themes. Mark Wahlberg plays an existentially troubled professor who, in order to escape his privileged and put-upon existence, seeks sweet release by losing everything he owns. We follow his escalating gambling debts to dangerous(ly) ethnic gangsters, as well as a white, paternal and benevolent one, until he finally finds a way out of his nihilism by way of a relationship with a beautiful student. Or does he?
Yes, he does, and this is not to really spoil anything, as the film’s rare moments of suspense come from cheap gambling table, double-or-nothing risks. The effect is a sleeker, more sexless midlife crisis than Californication except here, the existentialism, rather than the humour, is juvenile.
Words: Tom Pierce
