The Card Player -- 2004 -- NR

Dario Argento is best known for his 1977 film, Suspiria, which ranks among some of the best horror films of all time. This more recent offering is less horror and more CSI offering only more grotesque and graphic dead body shots than network and even the ratings board might allow.

The story revolves around an intriguing concept: a guy kidnaps women and forces the police to play poker against him and if the cops win, she goes free. But if he wins, she dies and they find her body in the river. So the cops do their best to win against the killer by trying their hand at it, and then finding an expert player to go up against him.

I'll grant that the film has some interesting twists, some good ideas, and an nice flow to it. But what it has in potential, it completely bombs in execution. It's actually difficult to believe this was made by a veteran filmmaker whose list of credits go back to the late 60's due to the sheer number of amateurish things this movie does. To begin with, the cops just got a threat that they either play poker with this guy or he kills the victim; well, they have nothing to lose except the victim's life, so what do they do? Refuse and she dies. Seriously... The second time he comes around, it takes an inordinate amount of convincing to the guy in charge to play against the guy to try and save the next guy. I don't quite get the problem there besides the old, "we don't negotiate with terrorists" bit.

I'm going to forgive a lot of the very clunky dialogue because it's dubbed, but even in the dub, you can tell that there are a lot of really dumb and pointless lines in this movie. Even if you grant that some people talk this way or chatter such as goes on in the office behind the person playing the game, in movieland, it gets trying and annoying if it's not presented in moderation, which it wasn't.

But my favorite part was when the woman discovered someone was in her house. It was the funniest part of the film. Guy gets into her house and she discovers he has her gun. The suspense here was good. They have an encounter. She bests him, and he ends up on the floor with her at an advantage. She neither takes the gun, nor does she keep beating him when he's down! Instead, this female police officer runs and hides behind the side of the couch. What!? Also, when she finds out she's not alone, she turns off the lights. I can see both sides of this. Good) She knows her house and he doesn't so she would be able to find her way around blind where he might crash into stuff. Bad) She can't see where he is and he might use the dark as a mask to remain where he is and let her bump around giving him (with the gun) the advantage. Lights on would have been more believable to me, but her beating the crap out of him would have clinthed it. As is, when she lets him go, it loses all steam.

We get the classic scene of the cop "checking out a lead," finding lots of evidence to support what's going on, and not calling for backup before trudging on in to the danger zone. Should we mention the two inch nails that penetrate a good foot of human flesh and even protrude out the other side?

We get a sequence of the police chief's daughter being taken, and it's no spoiler to say she lives. She's game number three, and the rules state it is time for the good guys to take a win home. But it feels like we have stuff cut out here and there. For instance, when she's taken, we get a shot of her with her family and then she's suddenly kidnapped. When they win, they throw a big party BEFORE she is released. When the party with her comes about, she looks no worse for wear. It's like it never happened. Sure, moving on is one thing, but wow, talk about quick.

What worked really well? The climax was very well conceived and very suspenseful. Finally, we got an inkling of why this guy is still in the business. The sequence when one of our good guys has to pick a door to life or death. His trek down the tunnel is very tense. The whodunit isn't bad, though there aren't a lot of clues given for them to follow.

I wish they'd ended it after the climax. Following the big ending, there was one more scene that played under the credits. It seriously cheapened the experience. Sure ending after the climax isn't great, but it would been better than what was tacked on to the end here. It had no story value whatsoever, in my opinion.

So as I said, this was a film that had some great ideas and a lot of potential, but when it comes to the execution, it crashed and burned very hard. Maybe Mr. Argento needs someone to read his scripts before he films them just to make sure they make sense.