ROUNDERS - DVD review

For years, people have told me about how good or entertaining "Rounders" is. For years, people have told me that "real" poker players think that "Rounders" is very realistic. Being a fan of Edward Norton, Matt Damon, and games inspired by brinksmanship (playing chicken, poker, Stratego, etc.), I decided to ask my colleague John Puccio for the opportunity to review the Special Edition DVD of "Rounders", undoubtedly timed to capitalize on public awareness of poker following airings of the World Series of Poker on cable stations in the United States. I'm sorry to say that I was underwhelmed by the movie.

In "Rounders", Mike (Matt Damon) quits playing poker after losing $30,000 in one night. However, when his high-school buddy Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of jail, Mike finds himself with huge loads of debt after vouching for the guy who took a fall for him. Eventually, Mike finds himself dropping out of law school and losing his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) while helping Worm scrounge up enough money via poker-playing to pay off the debts. As Mike and Worm owe money to a Russian gangster named "Teddy KGB" (John Malkovich), they know that they'd be in for a world of hurt if they can't meet their deadline.

The poker games are very exciting to watch. However, the rest of the movie feels very flat and static. Norton, Mol, and most of the other actors play the same notes from start to finish. This isn't necessarily the actors' fault since they didn't write the screenplay, but it gets tiresome watching the cast doing the same things over and over again. Also, at 120 minutes, the movie is too long and repetitive. We see Mike and Worm play poker. We see Mike and Worm get their lives threatened. We see Mike and Worm play poker again. We see Mike and Worm get their lives threatened again. This goes on and on and on, and the movie could've easily lost half an hour without suffering.

There are two actors who save "Rounders" from being a waste of time. Matt Damon is very good in the lead role, and his voiceover narrations help make the movie make sense to people unfamiliar with the different kinds of poker being played. John Malkovich is also very fascinating in what essentially amounts to a cameo. Otherwise, there is little to recommend.

Video:
The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen image looks a tad dark at times, but given the environments favored by the characters, I suppose the "darkness" could be attributed to artistically-motivated choices. The transfer looks very sharp as well. However, I noticed some print problems (scratches, nicks, white dots), and they appear throughout the movie.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 English track is front-heavy, so the rears don't do much. However, the separation is very wide across the front speakers, and you can always hear the dialogue. There are some moments with lively low-frequency effects, but they're not overdone. For some reason, the mix sounds a tad "artificial"—you can sense that a lot of it was created in post-production with instruments rather than recorded elements.

There's also a DD 2.0 surround French dub track. Optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles as well as optional English closed captions support the audio.

Extras:
The previous DVD of "Rounders" had nothing more than a trailer. This new DVD has several bonuses, though they're the kind that you experience once. There's an audio commentary by director John Dahl, screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman, and actor Edward Norton. There's another audio commentary by a couple of professional poker players. As expected, the moviemakers talk about making the movie as well as what they learned about poker during production, and the poker players comment on the verisimilitude of the poker-playing in the movie. Both commentaries are decent but not memorable affairs.

There's a behind-the-scenes featurette that is brief and superficial. "Inside Professional Poker" gives professional poker players the opportunity to talk about how great their favorite game is. Four pro-players offer poker advice in "Champion Poker Tips", though their "advice" is so vague and general that the pro-players sound like fortune-cookie writers rather than card sharks. "Heads Up Texas Hold ‘Em" gives you tips about how to play a certain kind of poker and allows you to play poker against the DVD. Finally, there are some previews for other Buena Vista DVDs, though you won't find the "Rounders" trailer on the disc.

--Miscellaneous--
An insert provides

Film Value:
The Special Edition DVD presentation of "Rounders" could be accused of being irresponsible. While the movie makes underground high-stakes poker-playing look very dangerous, it also makes it look exciting and glamorous. The extras on the DVD treat poker with such reverence that people who are already fans of the movie will only be encouraged to follow the characters' bad example.

The movie itself is rather two-faced. At first, it feels like you're watching a cautionary tale, but when Damon's character decides to do what he does at the end of the movie, the movie gets to have its cake (saving its protagonist from danger) and eat it, too (sending the protagonist to a place where he gets to play poker at more dangerous levels than he ever has). I'm not saying that the movie has to have a happy or a sad ending; rather, I'm saying that the movie should have the conviction of going one way or the other and not both.