I remember years ago watching a movie called "Less than Zero" with a young Robert Downey Jr. He was a hopeless junkie from a wealthy family.
When your bookmaker tells you that you've got a gambling problem, better listen because you really do. Paul Sorvino who goes up and down on the roller-coaster with his best customer James Caan is quite the diagnostician.
I agree with the reviewers who have stated this movie isn't for everyone. It's cynical and dark.
Those viewers who wished a happy ending (and that's what they're really saying when they find the movie's ending scene weak/disquieting/unfulfilling/whatever) don't really understand the nature of degenerate gambling.And that's what this man is.
Firstly I advise many of you to get a pillow before watching this drivel. Next, prepare to believe what you about to see for the first 20 minutes as much as possible.
You really have to be invested in weather or not Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) makes it out okay to like this movie. Jim acts like a jerk sometimes so it does make it rather difficult to care about him, but at the end of the day, I still do so I liked the movie.
This would have been much easier to remake if the director had stayed true to the grittiness of the original. It's stripped clean here.
In pop culture, before you had to "know when to walk away, know when to run," THE GAMBLER was synonymous with a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel and transcended into this 1970's film written by James Toback, directed by Karel Reisz and starring James Caan as university professor Axel Freed...But Axel's real story isn't his job, but his vice, practically a religion: that of gutsy yet brainless gambling...
Looking through Tubi..
