Rounders

January 23, 2008 | Posted by admin

Wow, a real poker movie for a change, not just some movie Hollywood put out with a few poker players in it that’s really about some coming of age or love story. You know the movies I’m talking about. If you don’t I’ll get you the names of them later. The coming of age story is about some punk kid who is supposedly good at poker then blows the rent money on roulette. The love story has Drew Barrymore in it. Enough ranting though, back to Rounders.

Rounders stars Matt Damon as poker player Michael McDermott. At the start of the movie Mike goes to play poker in a Russian poker club in New York ran by Teddy KGB (John Malkovich.) Mike throws down 30K and winds up losing it all in a single hand to Teddy. Mike then retires from poker at the urging of his nagging girlfriend and turns to law school and driving a truck at night. Mike’s girlfriend is very suspicious of him going to play poker all the time. Mike winds up running into his professor while his professor is playing cards with the local judges. Mike says he can read everyone’s hand blind for a summer clerkship. Mike reads the hands and impresses the judges. Mike’s girlfriend gets mad at him and rants about how he’s a “hustler” and poker has never gotten him anywhere. He borrows her car and picks up his old poker buddy Worm, played by Edward Norton, from prison. Mike and Worm go off to play cards. And thus the poker movie really begins.

This is actually a poker movie, not just a movie that has poker in it but is really a love story. Johnny Chan does appear in Rounders for a brief cameo. The thing I love about this movie is they actually refer to playing poker as a skill, not as a game of luck. They have players picking up tells on each other and playing good poker. Granted they go a little overboard with a tell but hey they have to make the movie appear to non poker players as well. The fact that the writer actually took the time to make a believable poker movie impressed me. Matt Damon actually entered the WSOP because of this movie. He didn’t do very well, but hey who cares, he played. I can’t say enough good about this film as a poker film. It’s kinda like Poolhall Junkies for pool players, a believable pool playing movie, its not just some character who plays pool, the guys actually play pool.

The point I’m trying to drive home here is if you like poker you will appreciate this film. I know there are a lot of films out there where they pretend the film is about poker but its not. This is not one of those. This is a real poker movie. A great add for anyone’s collection.

Hey, if you order the movie from the link above I’ll get a commission from it! If you leave my site now and go directly to Amazon.com without clicking on the link I will not get my 4-6% commission (4% is if 5 or less people order in a month, 6% is if 6 or more order) and you’ll still pay the same price for the movie.

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