Rounders (1998)
Directed by John Dahl
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
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His role is an obvious lift from the charismatic screw-up played by De Niro in "Mean Streets," but Norton has enough skill to make the character his own, even down to the way he lets his clothes hang on his lanky frame.
The remainder of the movie is "Mean Streets" redux, with Damon (the struggling saint) wrestling to keep Norton (the reckless sinner) from the clutches of people who want to either separate him from the money he owes them or to separate his shoulders from their sockets.
His films - which also include Red Rock West and The Last Seduction - specialize in combining twisting plots with subtle dark humor.
The movie was directed by John Dahl , whose "Red Rock West" and "The Last Seduction" are inspired neo-noirs.
The director was John Dahl, who’d directed the moody indie fave The Last Seduction.
An unexceptional, but enjoyable drama by John Dahl, who directed the modern noirs, "The Last Seduction" and "Red Rock West."
First-time screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman and director John Dahl (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) have embedded Rounders with a plenty of gambling vernacular and local color (with side trips to drab Binghampton, New York, and a garish Atlantic City casino), effectively captured by cinematographer Jean Yves Escoffier ( Good Will Hunting ), but their characters are painted with flat strokes, with the possible exception of the compulsive Worm.
Directed by John Dahl ("Red Rock West," "The Last Seduction"), "Rounders" is lively, swarthy and brimming with potential that it misses by a hair.
Damon’s co-star was Edward Norton, still flying high from his 1996 nomination for his film debut, Primal Fear.
Norton (Primal Fear, The People vs. Larry Flynt) immerses himself into this big bad egg of a sleaze role, and while I had no trouble hating his character (God save your sole if you empathize with this loser), it takes way too long for his school buddy to realize hes friends with an vile stick of aging dynamite -- unstable and ready to blow.
But this friend, a recent parolee named Worm played by the always astounding Edward Norton ( "Primal Fear," "...Larry Flynt" ) with all the unwashed mannerisms befitting his name, runs circles around Damon's Mike McDermott in the screen charisma department.
Mike's life choices are put to the test when his best friend Worm (Edward Norton, "Primal Fear") is released from jail with a $15,000 gambling debt hanging over his head.
Oscar-nominated for "Primal Fear" and impressive in "The People vs. Larry Flynt," Norton is an actor with the gift of disappearing inside his roles, and the energy and confidence he brings to a toothpick-chewing conniver like Worm makes the character the perfect foil for Mike's straight-arrow diligence.