A New Gambling Movie Starring Oscar Isaac? What Could Go Wrong!
The Card Counter tells the story of an ex-military interrogator turned gambler haunted by the ghosts of his past decisions.
This movie kind of came out of nowhere for me. I hadn't heard about the casting news, the rights etc. But here we are with a full ass trailer of Oscar Isaac looking sexy as hell playing some cards.
It has a pretty solid cast around him as well in Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and one of my all time favorites, Willem Dafoe. Seeing Haddish in a more purely dramatic role is an interesting risk since that would be, on it's face, out of her comfort zone of comedy. But Dafoe is a legend and Sheridan is still a rising star.
Speaking of stars, director Paul Schrader is a prolific screenwriter who wrote Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Bringing out the Dead for Marty Scorsese. He also directed some as well, some better than others. One I would love to highlight, though, is his 2017 movie 'First Reformed'. It was one of my favorite movies of that year, and I gave it a 94/100 on movierankings.net. It was extremely well written, but also just very well made from from a direting standpoint. If Schrader can replicate that level of success, this could potentially rule.