The Card Player
Director: Dario Argento
Starring: Stefania Rocca, Liam Cunningham, Silvio Muccino, Claudio Santamaria, Antonio Cantafora, Mia Benedetta and Fiore Argento
Running Time:106 Minutes
Release Date: TBC
Reviewed by: Pam Creais
A new film by Dario Argento used to be something of an event for his fans but these days there’s a sense of trepidation at the unveiling of his latest project. This is due to his latter films being generally less audacious and thrilling than those of the 70s. With The Card Player he returns again to his giallo roots but as always with Argento he does it on his terms.
A dangerous maniac (where would Argento be without dangerous maniacs?) is holding the Rome police to ransom with his perverse games. Women are being kidnapped and then used as bait in live internet poker games between the killer and the police, who have no alternative but to go along with him if the women are to live. For Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca), an officer on the case, it also brings back unpleasant memories of her alcoholic gambler father. When disgraced Irish detective John Brennan (Liam Cunningham) joins the team on secondment from London it further muddies the waters. Brennan is an alcoholic loner but his skill in Forensic pathology might open new avenues of inquiry. Poker whizkid Remo (Silvio Muccino) may also be invaluable in their search for the killer.
There’s a germ of a good idea in here somewhere but it gets bogged down in a so-so script that comes across as if it were ad-libbed as the actors go along (which it was for the most part!) Argento is renowned for having scant regard for narrative and it is evident here. Some of the lines had the audience sniggering in derision, which I’m sure wasn’t the intention.
Actors Cunningham and Rocca do what they can to flesh out their underwritten parts and there is a believable chemistry between their characters. For an Argento film, it is a relatively bloodless affair focusing more on the forensic aftermath of the murders than the killings themselves. This serves to highlight the striking special effects courtesy of Sergio Stivaletti. There is not much in the way of surprises though apart from the surprise killing of a main character before the film’s conclusion that is as grisly as it is unexpected.
If Sleepless marked a return to form for Argento after the barren 90s then The Card Player could be viewed as a couple of steps backwards (this opinion seems a little harsh and a repeat viewing of the labyrinthine muddle that is Trauma will soon revise it). Argento does not like to repeat himself and The Card Player comes across as his answer to the police procedural/technology obsessed viewers of the 21st century. His ideas are sound but the execution is slack and not as involving as it could be. That said The Card Player is not a bad film but it should have been better.
