'Rounders' raises Damon's stakes

Picture a world where poker is the game, but five card draw is so exceedingly simple that nobody thinks to play. A world where the ante is upwards of a grand and the pot can reach $60,000. A world where one minute you can be up and on your way to Vegas, and with the flip of a card you can be broke on the street.

This place does exist. It is the world of John Dahl's "Rounders." The game is Texas Hold'em.

REVIEW
	Rounders 3 1/2 stars At Briarwood and Showcase

Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) is a poor law student, who lives in New York with his equally poor law-student-girlfriend, Jo (Gretchen Mol). McDermott, a rounder - a genius at reading cards, watching the opponent and making money at the card table - pays his tuition with money won at poker clubs throughout the city. After losing a fortune one night, he "retires" from the game and becomes a manual laborer to pay the bills.

Just when McDermott is getting his life in some order, his old buddy Worm (Edward Norton) is let out of jail. Worm, who has $25,000 debt on his back, immediately begins dragging McDermott around to card games in an attempt to use his friend's talent and savings to get in the black. Being the consummate nice-guy, McDermott vouches for Worm when a thug demands the money he is owed.

Courtesy of Miramax Matt Damon stars as Mike McDermott, a poker addict trying to save his old pal, in the new Miramax release "Rounders."

With hopes of removing the price from his friend's - and his - head, McDermott reluctantly gets back into the underworld of poker where nothing - especially law school and love - seems certain.

More than just a film about the-good-boy-being-bad syndrome, "Rounders" is a lesson in poker, gambling and being a wise-guy. Much like Martin Scorsese's "The Color of Money" - where the mode of the vice is pool - part of the entertainment here comes from just seeing the pros do what they do - and hopefully learning how they do it.

Dahl sets up this poker school very well by using a voice-over by Damon, explaining what is happening and why. Here, Damon's control of his craft truly shines as he speaks to us in a near whisper, letting us in on this secret, illicit part of life. When physically acting, Damon is confident and smart and full of just enough cock to make his role work.

The film builds gradually up to the last showdown scene between McDermott and Teddy KGB (John Malkovich), the now-owner of most of McDermott's money. KGB is a juicy and fresh Russian immigrant who craves Oreo cookies and bears a striking resemblance to V.I. Lenin. This scene is just a taste, though, of the solid acting throughout the film.

Martin Landau brilliantly plays the grandfather-you've-always-wanted law professor, Petrovsky, and John Turturro slithers his way in as the hustling, but much-needed poker buddy, Joey Knish.

One large hole in the acting comes in the form of Gretchen Mol. She reads her lines like a scared eighth-grader and removes depth from an already-too-superficial character.

Better than what we learn about stud poker is what seems to be kept a secret. We see Worm cheat by loading McDermott's hand with face cards, but we never see how he does this. We are told what McDermott knows is in his opponents hands, but he never explains how he keeps track of the cards. We are just civilian spectators to this high-stakes, high-skill game.

In the end, the framing story - that of a struggling lawyer - gets lost in the shuffle. It seems as if this big part of the story line is just a simple tool used by the writer to get McDermot and Jo to fight and to pull a moving monologue from Prof. Petrovsky.

McDermott never comes across as a man who loves the law, and in fact the opposite is true - he likes breaking the law. This set-up becomes a bit ridiculous when the chips start falling, and we find ourselves in the middle of a poker film.

Much like in "The Color of Money," "Rounders" shows a world that is far beyond our own - both in sin and skill. Yet it is part of our sphere. Dahl makes sure we know this by keeping us interested in the action - through glitzy card tricks. He also emotionally ties us to the characters through quick dialogue. Most important, Dahl shows how to win without being dealt a straight-flush.

09-16-98