The Card Counter (2021)

[Cremildo]

Eyeliner?

[MifuneFan]

The trailer for this looks decent aside from every scene with Haddish. Her acting, even in this small sampling, is just terrible.

[jhan8185]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

The trailer for this looks decent aside from every scene with Haddish. Her acting, even in this small sampling, is just terrible.

Ooph yeah that was pretty bad from Haddish. Hollywood has her going toe-toe with people like Isaac now? Ugh

[Himmel]

[Monterey Jack]

The Card reap what you sow Counter

[Cremildo]

[Cremildo]

Metacritic

[Dubstar]

an Atmos mixer (consultant) is credited in the end titles crawl yet there's no actual Dolby Atmos logo, did this go out to theaters as such ? - the sound design and music is excellent, still mulling my head around my thoughts on the movie.

[The Great Owl]

Five stars

During his sentence of eight and a half years at Leavenworth because of his participation in the torture of detainees when he served as an interrogator at Abu Ghraib, William Tell, played by Oscar Isaac, taught himself how to count cards. He now lives an austere life on the road, playing blackjack at casinos and winning just enough to beat the house, but not enough to draw attention to himself. While spending solitary nights at nondescript hotels, he covers the room furniture with white sheets, maintaining colorless surroundings as a form of mental control.

The day-to-day blankness of William's routine existence comes to an end when he is approached by Cirk, a college-aged kid, played by Tye Sheridan, whose father also served at Abu Ghraib and subsequently committed suicide because of guilt. Cirk is obsessed with the idea of exacting murderous revenge on the military contractor, played by Willem Dafoe, who trained both William and his father in the art of torture and then evaded justice to remain a free man who now prospers in the field of security software. Now graced with a purpose to dissuade Cirk from his vengeful mission, William takes his younger companion along on the road, hoping to win enough money to pay off the kid's school debts and to steer him into a better life. With the help of La Linda, a gambling agent played by Tiffany Haddish, he aspires to earn a shot at redemption by winning the World Series of poker in Las Vegas. Best laid plans, however, may not be enough to provide solace for tortured souls.

Director Paul Schrader, who worked as a screenwriter for classics like Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bill (1980) before stepping behind the camera to helm the likes of American Gigolo (1980) and Cat People (1982), is no stranger to the concept of haunted men who use their professions to cope with damaged psyches. His brilliant 1979 film, Hardcore, starred the late George C. Scott as a devoutly conservative Calvinist who enters a seedy underworld when he travels to California to rescue his daughter from her life as a pornographic actress. Most recently, his 2017 late-career masterwork, First Reformed, featured Ethan Hawke as a conflicted minister whose life takes a harrowing turn in the wake of a sudden tragedy.

Schrader's 2021 effort, The Card Counter, strives for a similar character study, finding success in the casting of Isaac, whose occasional voiceover narrations are spoken in an unnervingly monotone way. This is a slow burn thriller that will likely frustrate most audiences, but I love the way that it captures the soul-crushing repetition of sameness while also moving on cruise control down dark narrative pathways that are impossible to predict during one's first viewing. Scenes of tenderness, when Isaac's William begins to fall in love with Haddish's character, are welcoming, but comfort has never been a part of this director's wheelhouse.

Fans of the minimalist 1959 French classic, Pickpocket, directed by Robert Bresson, will find much to love during the final moments of The Card Counter, even if these moments spring from edge-of-the-seat unrest and heartbreaking destructiveness.

[Hindustani]

Saw THE CARD COUNTER today (AMC Cinemas. Dolby Digital)

shot on Alexa at 6.5K.

An artificial grain is applied post-production clearly. you could see that in outdoor shots.

starts off slow, 1st 1/2 hour. very good movie. I say 1/2 out of

Oscar Isaac should be nominated for Oscar Best Actor in the Lead Role

[slumcat]

Originally Posted by Hindustani

Saw THE CARD COUNTER today (AMC Cinemas. Dolby Digital)

shot on Alexa at 6.5K.

An artificial grain is applied post-production clearly. you could see that in outdoor shots.

starts off slow, 1st 1/2 hour. very good movie. I say 1/2 out of

Oscar Isaac should be nominated for Oscar Best Actor in the Lead Role

Wrong. Oscar Isaac should win the Oscar. He is absolutely outstanding and the film is tremendous as well.

[Hindustani]

Originally Posted by slumcat

Wrong. Oscar Isaac should win the Oscar. He is absolutely outstanding and the film is tremendous as well.

There is a huge underlying problem. It looks so cheap technically like an episode of some digital HBO or AMC series.

If there was ever a movie that should've been shot on film, this is it. This guy worked with scorsese in the past.

there is a real good film somewhere in there. I cannot imagine seeing this on small digital screen. It needed to be shot on film to make it gritty.

Isaac's performance literally holds the film together.

[BluBonnet]

Oscar Isaac does deliver a solid performance, but this isn't anywhere near one of his best...

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by Hindustani

Saw THE CARD COUNTER today (AMC Cinemas. Dolby Digital)

shot on Alexa at 6.5K.

An artificial grain is applied post-production clearly. you could see that in outdoor shots.

starts off slow, 1st 1/2 hour. very good movie. I say 1/2 out of

Oscar Isaac should be nominated for Oscar Best Actor in the Lead Role

To be that guy. It was actually shot on the ARRI LF not the ARRI 65.

https://filmmakermagazine.com/112253.../#.YUEpuS1h1B0

[Lee A Stewart]

The ALEXA LF has a sensor twice as large as ALEXA SXT W Open Gate, and ALEXA 65 has a sensor three times as large as the ALEXA SXT W Open Gate. ALEXA LF has the biggest sensor area of any cinema camera currently available for sale, second only to the ALEXA 65, which is a rental-only product.

[slumcat]

Originally Posted by Hindustani

There is a huge underlying problem. It looks so cheap technically like an episode of some digital HBO or AMC series.

If there was ever a movie that should've been shot on film, this is it. This guy worked with scorsese in the past.

there is a real good film somewhere in there. I cannot imagine seeing this on small digital screen. It needed to be shot on film to make it gritty.

Isaac's performance literally holds the film together.

I saw on big screen. The movie does look very flat. I wonder if that is by design. Honestly it didn’t bother me. This is a film so completely engrossing and Issac is performing at such a high level that you don’t need fancy cinematography.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by slumcat

I saw on big screen. The movie does look very flat. I wonder if that is by design. Honestly it didn’t bother me. This is a film so completely engrossing and Issac is performing at such a high level that you don’t need fancy cinematography.

I saw this in the big screen, and it doesn't look much different than most other Paul Schrader movies, nearly all of which I've also watched on the big screen.

It should be noted Schrader has previously worked with the DP for this movie, Alexander Dynan, so it's probably safe to assume they like working with each other and they both know the look Schrader wants.

Really, I don't see any reason for the cinematography here to have been more glossy or slick than it is.

[Hindustani]

Originally Posted by slumcat

I saw on big screen. The movie does look very flat. I wonder if that is by design. Honestly it didn’t bother me. This is a film so completely engrossing and Issac is performing at such a high level that you don’t need fancy cinematography.

I think, this movie is clearly inspired from HARD EIGHT(1997), the car scenes, pool scene and few of the motel scenes were clearly underwhelming and were clearly flat.

Isaac's performance was so compelling, he clearly deserved gritty look to get him that nomination. Particularly, gory climax director was going for which fell flat imo.

I hope Oscars dont deliberately ignore Oscar's performance due to technical choices of filmmakers.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Hindustani

I hope Oscars dont deliberately ignore Oscar's performance due to technical choices of filmmakers.

There's a pretty good chance the movie will have been largely forgotten by the Academy by the time nominations are announced, and it won't have a thing to do with "technical choices"

[AnthonyGG]

Originally Posted by BluBonnet

There's a pretty good chance the movie will have been largely forgotten by the Academy by the time nominations are announced, and it won't have a thing to do with "technical choices"

Kinda have to agree. I just saw this today and while Schrader and cinematographer Alexander Dynan do some nice things with lighting, shot selection and camera lens tricks, I found the story itself predictable and fairly unexciting. Isaac does nice work and while I'm a Tiff Haddish fan I have to say their chemistry wasn't all there. Also, there were times both Haddish and Tye Sheridan seemed unengaged.

If you loved this one, more power to you. I'm glad I saw it as someone who has enjoyed Paul Schrader's work in the past but overall I just found it too familiar (did anyone NOT see that climax coming? I mean come ON!), too obvious and not terribly engrossing. I was never bored though, just never enthused.