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This is a melancholy, earnest road movie about a couple of poker
players played by Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds. It is a watchable if
faintly baffling movie, never anything other than well acted, conspicuously
without allegiance to any conventional three-act screenplay structure. Like the
river in the title, it just keeps rolling along, long after you have given up
waiting for the big twist or the killer reveal or the double-cross sucker
punch. This is something in the looser, untrammelled, even undirected style of
the 1970s American New Wave: there’s an ancestor-worship acting cameo for
James Toback (screen writer of The
Gambler).
It puts its own spin on the buddy movies of the 70s era:
Redford/Newman from George Roy Hill’s The Sting and Segal/Gould from
Robert Altman’s California Split. It presents realism and sentimentality
in a strange but intriguing mix, leaving the implausibly sweeter material until
the end. Maybe the retro look of the drama is a necessity, now that so much
poker is actually played online.
Ben Mendelsohn (Gerry), plays a
deadbeat loser from Iowa with a parched, frazzled look, as if he has just
climbed out of a tumble dryer nursing a hangover. He is a drinker and gambling
addict – although his condition is never described in these terms –
who has lost everything he has to poker. He has no money to speak of and parted
company with his wife and child long ago. |
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One night, Gerry buys in to a low-stakes poker
tournament and he and the rest of his table are amused in spite of themselves
by Curtis, played by Ryan Reynolds: bit of cool, bit of wise-guy, clearly new
in town, boyish yet worldly, who has a knack of engaging everyone else in
conversation that doesn’t look like needling or gamesmanship. Gerry and
Curtis get talking later in a bar, and Gerry, gets very over-excited by
Curtis’s style: he is clearly one of life’s winners and Gerry
can’t suppress his desire to be taken in..
Curtis says he has a
plan to travel to New Orleans to partake in a high-rolling poker game where
players need to put up $25,000. Gerry is desperate for a piece of that action
and after expressing many a good-natured qualm, Curtis agrees to take him
there; the plan is to go on a road trip with his new best friend down to the
deep south, winning money in games and casinos along the way, blood brothers in
the cult of the cards, the dice, the dogs and the ponies.
What’s
the angle? Is Curtis working a familiar scam? You'll have to watch and see. Ben
Mendelsohn best performance to date. |
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| Director |
Anna
Boden / Ryan Fleck |
Ben
Mendelsohn |
Gerry |
| Producer |
Randall
Emmett |
Ryan
Reynolds |
Curtis |
| Writing |
Anna
Boden / Ryan Fleck |
James
Toback |
Tony
Roundtree |
| Cinematography |
Greig
Fraser |
Sienna Miller |
Simone |
| Cert./Runtime |
15 / 108
mins |
Yvonne Landry |
Louise |
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