Wahlberg doesn’t quite get audience to root for him in ‘Gambler’
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jessica Lange, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Anthony Kelley, George Kennedy; directed by Rupert Wyatt; R for language throughout, and for some sexuality/nudity; 111 minutes
Mark Wahlberg takes on his most ambitious acting job ever in “The Gambler,” a gritty remake of a 1974 film that starred James Caan. And the new gambler doesn’t embarrass himself.
Playing a college professor addicted to losing, digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself with loan sharks, underworld gambling entrepreneurs and his family, Wahlberg never gives away the game – that long, erudite speeches about Shakespeare and Camus are not his forte.
But as Jim Bennett, one-time novelist turned arrogant assistant college professor with a gambling problem, Wahlberg also fails to let us taste the desperation. His fatalism locks the door on panic and empathy. For Bennett, “Life’s a losing proposition. Might as well get it over with.”
That’s why he’s deep into debt with the shady Korean gambling mogul, Mr. Lee (Alvin Ing), willing to dive into dept with the even more dangerous Neville (Michael K. Williams, silky smooth) and hoping to get the massive, aged King of the Sharks, Frank (John Goodman) to lend him the cash that might cover his losses to the first two.
“Going on as I am is the only thing I’ve got,” he tells his mother, given a desperate fury by the great Jessica Lange.
But as meaty as this script sounds – every line another morsel – it never allows Wahlberg the chance to make us care what happens to Jim.
Roger Moore, Tribune News Service
Left to right: Mark Wahlberg plays Jim Bennett and Brie Larson plays Amy in THE GAMBLER, from Paramount Pictures.