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| ROUNDERS (1998) - R
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ReviewScore: 55 out of 100
SBD Star Rating:
by Lew Irwin
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The betting is on the card-shark movie Rounders to take over the top spot at the box office this weekend despite being dealt a rather mixed hand by critics. Janet Maslin in the New York Times, while faulting a thin plot, nevertheless calls the film "mischievously entertaining" and postulates that "poker fever makes up for whatever the story lacks in everyday emotions." Eleanor Ringel in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, finds the script "pungent" and "poker-wise," by contrast, and suggests that star Matt Damon gives a convincing demonstration of "star power." Likewise Jay Carr in the Boston Globe says that "Rounders is another juicy Matt Damon movie," and notes that the "film cashes in on the play of expressions on Damon's face and the feeling that we can see the wheels turning inside his head. ... This is why he's such an arresting actor." But Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News finds the plot "predictable" and concludes that the movie is "a couple of cards short of being a real winner." Also invoking the card game metaphor, Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times says the movie is "like a poker hand that looks promising but doesn't quite play out." "And Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News calls it "dark and sometimes silly." Roger Ebert's take in the Chicago Sun Times: "As a mediocre player who hits the poker room at the Mirage a couple of times a year and has read a fair share of books about the World Series of Poker, I enjoyed it."
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