Croupier

Pros: unusual structure, raises interesting issues about gambling and writing
Cons: profanity, becomes pretty hard to follow by the end

A couple of years ago, the Family Video down the street had a big sale. All of the tapes in a certain section of the store could be bought for a dollar. I indulged in a few impulse buys, among them Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. I'd wanted ...

Pros: Good performances, film noir angle
Cons: Paced a little too slowly

Attention Hollywood! Once upon a time you used to release a genre of pictures known as film noir. Film noir, a French term literally meaning "black film," told tales of people who were trapped in bad situations with no good way out. Examples of...

Pros: Clive Owen, the pace, director Mike Hodges' world.
Cons: Too self-aware for its own good.

Croupier is a film which is very hard to find. I had really wanted to see it because I had heard great things about it, and was becoming a fan of lead actors Clive Owen's work. From the quirky Greenfingers, to the near-perfect Gosford...

Pros: Good acting, rather than just flash or pizazz, makes for solid crackerjack suspense film.
Cons: One of the last reel developments seems jarring and completely unnecessary.

Director Mike Hodges and writer Paul Mayersberg (Man Who Fell to Earth) have crafted a smart clever film. It's not an important film, but a deliciously entertaining and clever one. The inside look we get of a British gambling club feels and looks...

Pros: slick, fast paced story, unexpected twists of plot, terrific cast
Cons: minor problem understanding British slang

Pros: An ingenious plot, Alex Kingston, and Clive Owen has potential to become a Star.
Cons: The film may not be so deep as some people think.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, a fashionable French experimental novelist of the 1950's, and since his collaboration with Renais on LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1960) a writer/director, invented as his most innovative device the telling of a story in which a central...

Pros: Clive Owen, superb script, perfect direction.
Cons: Very few; perhaps too cerebral for some.

Man, where is Miramax when you need it? With the earned reputation as cinema’s greatest champion for quality independent fare, Bob and Harvey Weinstein’s boutique studio has always found and distributed the best that non-studio and foreign film has to...

Pros: Strong performances, excellent writing and cinematography.
Cons: I suppose there are no blood-pumping moments, but they are not really necessary.

Croupier. Before this movie, very few people would have known what it meant. I thought it was some sort of hairstyle to be honest. But it's not. It's the guy who deals the cards and spins the roulette wheel at the casino. Yes, that place that you...

Pros: It's way cool.
Cons: You may not like close ups of gamblers.

I notice several reviews of Croupier and have assiduously avoided reading them because one of my pleasures is to see how what I think segues or doesn't with the mental processes of others. Since a sub-theme of this flick is getting into people's heads,...

Pros: Noir lives!
Cons: You'll probably have to wait for the video

"Croupier" is one of the half-dozen indie films offered up for wider U.S. release in The Shooting Gallery series (like "Judy Berlin" which I reviewed on 3/2/00). Filmed in 1998, it is a noirish, intense, slick, and stylish tale of...

Pros: brilliant direction and script
Cons: no cons

I nearly let “Croupier” get away from me and I’m glad I finally tracked it down. Maybe I’m reacting to the fatigue of the tepid summer films, but I feel as if it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

“Croupier” was the one of the 2000...

Pros: An Intriguing Story Told with that Signature Mike Hodges Style
Cons: Inconsequential

A croupier is a casino dealer -- a position that can make or break a man as quickly as he can make or break a player. Like any other self destructive job, the croupier life is addictive. Once you deal in, your hooked.

That is what Jack...

Pros: Intoxicating, provocative, slick
Cons: Doesn't make much sense

It barely mattered that this film unraveled in the end and was filled with holes the whole way through, because it was intoxicating despite its flaws. And they were flaws, not innovations or stylistic decisions. There were aspects of the film that simply...

Pros: Intelligent, refreshingly downbeat modern noir.
Cons: The retro cinematic approach does not always work in its favour.

This film is a curiosity, a resolutely old fashioned noirish thriller comfortable with a downbeat tone and an intentional eschewal of slickness and fast-action excitement.

It's also pretty unusual in being a British movie that's not about...

Pros: Clive Owen, Mike Hodges direction
Cons: Not enough surprises

"Croupier", the new film by Mike Hodges (the director of "Get Carter", more on that later), is enjoying a small run in US Theaters. It is part of a series of films that The Shooting Gallery (the producers of "Slingblade")...