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Rounders

If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.

A review by Mike Shea   Movie Rating: ( * * * * · )    DVD Rating: ( * * · · · )

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Ok, I love Matt Damon and I love Ed Norton (strictly platonically speaking) so this movie was going to have to suck pretty bad for me not to like it. Frankly it far from sucked. Matt Damon plays a guy who may very well be one of the best poker players in the world. For him it goes way beyond luck. He says that with a normal group of lawyers at the table, he could beat them without even looking at his hand and we truly believe that he could. Unfortunately, he has a friend (Ed Norton) who isn't quite as talented but has ten times the balls. This guy uses every dirty trick to beat his opponents, instead of Mike (Damon) who plays it straight. Well, Worm (Norton) manages to drag Mike down with him, losing his girlfriend and his career in the process. At first it seems that Mike is letting his life fall away too easily, his response to his girlfriend moving out is to hit Atlantic City. We later realize that he was just living the wrong life. He is indeed one of the best and to throw that away for a normal life isn't want he wanted to do. When he was at the table, he felt alive. The movie did a good job of showing his character as he attempts to hold onto the strings of his daily life but lets them slip as Worm takes him back into the 60 hour days of a card shark. The DVD was another Miramax disappointment with a 2.35 to 1 non 16x9 enhanced picture but a very good Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There were no notable extras on the disc. Overall an excellent story if you can handle the idea of someone who is out of place in normal life but perfectly at home in the seedy underworld of a card shark.