"Rounders" is about a straight-flying legal student (Matt Damon) who leaves behind his gambling habits to satisfy his moralistic girlfriend. However when his best friend "Worm" (Edward Norton) is released from jail, the two embark on a cards-journey that leads them from success to misfortune after Worm is caught cheating and the man who caught him (John Malkovich) wants his money back.

Whereas Ben Affleck continues to go downhill after "Good Will Hunting," Matt Damon has striven uphill, taking on daring productions such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "The Bourne Identity" series, and of course "Rounders," which features one of his best performances. Damon has become typecast as some sort of bad actor in the league of Affleck, but he's much better than his pal, and films like this prove it.

Norton is once again superb as one of his characters you love to hate. He's got the character of Worm down pat, and it really elevates the acting (along with Damon) to a level of greatness.

The film is directed and written very well, offering realistic dialog and gritty environments. However the flaws of the movie are its long running time (two hours exactly),which could have been shortened, and probably the fact that its card playing is sometimes a bit alienating to the audience.

That said, this is still a very underrated movie featuring outstanding performances and a unique spin on gambling flicks. Worth watching at least once in a lifetime.

Rounders (1998)

A charming idea, almost romanticized: if you are young, clever, good looking, and savvy at playing poker you can be ultra cool and maybe even wealthy. That makes for a pretty good movie, if not a very accurate reality. It isn't quite enough to keep two hours going, however, and so the big picture here is to enjoy what it has.

A quick comparison might be made to "The Hustler" and related pool shark movies. And like that classic, "Rounders" is about charming deceit. Matt Damon is the main man here, an ex-poker champ who has "gone straight" until his former partner in crime, Ed Norton, gets out of jail and ropes him back into the thrills and malevolence. Like the pool movies, and like the glitzier and more ambitious "Oceans" movies, personalities matter most. The setting, the glint of money, and most of all the plots matter less than you'd think.

So everything is pretty good along those lines, partly because Damon is fun to be with and Norton is simply terrific. An embarrassing appearance in the beginning and end of the movie by an overacting John Malkovich gets in the way of Damon's performance, however. And the general attempt at creating a bunch of bad guys behind the scenes is filled with thin clichés and mediocre acting.

This is the result of having to make more of the story that was ever there. The main idea--that the two leads get into money trouble and have to earn a ton of cash in a few days of wild poker games--is eventually actually a bit of a bore. The gamesmanship is always interesting, of course, but the impetus behind it grows old. The addition of Martin Landau as a Jewish lawyer who gives Damon a mitzvah as a kind of honor paid to continue a favor once given him is a touching part of the larger plot, making you wish there was more of this somehow, more of something genuine and a bit different.

It might not have helped that I recently saw "Croupier" with a young Clive Owen as a poker dealer, because that movie, whatever its simplicity and other limitations, actually made the poker scenes more real for me. In fact, one problem with "Rounders" is you never get to actually sense the betting itself, and the cards--the playing and the strategies of playing--are glossed over with some tossing of chips and flipping of cards, all in a vague muddle.

I did enjoy watching overall, but it left me a little disappointed and restless.

You know how there's supposed to be the "Oscar curse", when a person wins a gold statuette and proceeds to star in a really worthless movie? Well, it happened to Matt Damon. After he and Ben Affleck won writing Oscars for "Good Will Hunting", they both starred in some real turkeys: Affleck in the god-awful "Armageddon" and Damon in the go-nowhere "Rounders". This is supposed to be about high-stakes gambling, but the whole thing runs as if the actors are on depressants. There isn't a likable or memorable character anywhere in the movie. So there's the possibility that a screw-up might lead to danger? Well, watching this movie, I wished that something would happen to the worthless characters. AND WHY DOES THE GANGSTER (John Malkovich) HAVE TO BE Russian?!!!!!!!! The point is, you should avoid this movie at all costs. There are plenty of good movies out there, so there's no reason to waste your time on this junk. Also starring Edward Norton, John Turturro, Martin Landau and Gretchen Mol.