Starring: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe, Alexander Babara
Distributor: Universal Pictures International
Runtime: 111 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2021
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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This revenge thriller tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of the past.
Written and directed by veteran Paul Schrader, this film is about cards – blackjack – but, eventually, much more.
To offer a flavour of what will be seen is a suggestion that there is going to be a flurry of articles (even theses?) exploring the similarities between Schrader’s characters, Travis Bickle, (Taxi Driver’s mentally unstable veteran who works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City (1976)), and William Tell (The Card Counter). While Bickle looked into his mirror and asked ‘are you talking to me?’, Tell frequently gazes into mirrors, but asking himself who he really is.
Tell – formerly Private First Class William Tillich – is played by Isaac, who has built up a substantial career over 15 years, appearing in 2021 in the television series remake of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes of a Marriage as well as playing Duke Leto Atreides in Dune. Isaac has a serious demeanour, ‘gravitas’, and this is how he initially appears in The Card Counter.
He has quite a back story but we do not learn this for quite some time. Rather, we learn he has spent time in prison, finding prison life appeals more than his previous somewhat reckless life. Tell played cards and learned to count cards (there is considerable explanation of his methods of counting – which may be illuminating to poker players but is rather overwhelming for audiences who are trying to keep pace with his explanations and methods).
He encounters three characters. La Linda (Haddish not in a comic role this time) is a gambler who has created a stable of players and found them wealthy backers, moving them from card tournament to tournament around the US. Dafoe is seen as giving a lecture on security technology and identity recognition. Sheridan is a young man (Cirk), sitting next to Tell at the lecture.
The audience has been prepared for some revelations by a dream sequence which Tell has in his hotel room (where he always covers mirrors and all furniture with protective sheets, tying them with rope). The nightmare is of torture tunnels at Abu Ghraib (visually churning sequences of the torture that took place there). Which means this interesting film takes us in quite a different direction, the revelation about Tells’s past, the reason he was in prison, the connection with Dafoe and his masterminding and supervising so much of the torture, and the involvement of Cirk’s father.
Schrader raises the possibilities for Tell – to join with the young man and follow a path of revenge or to become a mentor to the young man, urging him to make contact with his alienated mother, willing to provide finance for him and his studies, all with the approval of Haddish. In the meantime, Tell continues with his tournaments, battling a braggard who appears at every tournament, with his ragtag and loud supporters, Mr USA (Babara).
Has Tell made peace with his past life, found love and companionship with La Linda, enabling the young man to find some meaning and hope in his life? With a Paul Schrader film, this kind of happy ending seems rather unlikely – but we need to see it to the end to appreciate the moral decisions of Tell.
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