Rounders: Critic Reviews

Mischievously entertaining!

The wholesome pup's poker face alone, however, hardly accounts for the film's failure to thrill. Damon's character doesn't really have that much stake in the story's outcome.

A disappointing mediocrity.

Rounders cheerfully buys into compulsive gambling!

Gretchen Mol, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Martin Landau, and Famke Janssen costar; they're all pretty good, but not good enough to make this 1998 feature worth seeing.

A promising cast can't rescue a script without surprises!

Intermittently engaging but dramatically slack.

Though it's a good-looking flick with some smart acting and a few flashy runs, it barely breaks even dramatically, and feels, overall, like a good chance wasted.

Rounders is not breakthrough material, but it makes for an entertaining evening out.

In fighting to show the psychological complexities in Mike that the script ignores, Damon plays it like a rounder instead of a grinder. This kid still has surprises up his sleeve.

Though Damon is an actor who's flatly impossible not to root for, the longer this film lasts the less patience we have to stay with him.

This ode to the allure of clipping suckers and psyching out the competition is richly atmospheric but thin in the character department.

John Dahl creates an intelligent and character-driven crime-drama built around solid performances by Damon and Norton.

In his first non-noir film, John Dahl, assisted by the great French lenser Jean-Yves Escoffier, gives New York's underground gambling scene a vivid atmopshere, with special attention to its particular rituals and fast macho talk.

"Rounders" makes you feel the suspense and thrive in the thrill of the moment, always coming up aces.

The end result is still short of a winning hand, since the screenplay is so utterly predictable.

Other directors simply pay homage to film noir and their movies come across as copies or throwbacks, but Dahl's movies work because he seems to understand the inner workings of film noir, and the absurd situations that people can get into.

It's too bad with all of the poker action there wasn't enough time to establish the relationships between characters.

It's a likable movie and a solid follow up for Damon.

The fact that I was so motivated by the movie to put all that money on the table speaks positively of the picture.

[Provides] a lot of entertainment as well as some food for thought.

The "good buddy, bad buddy" symmetry harkens back to the days of James Cagney-Pat O'Brien pictures, but this is stylish enough to make us forgive the narrative conventions.

Takes you into a grungy underworld of high-stakes poker in New York City.

For every good thing about Rounders there is a flaw.

Damon proves once again that he's not just a face, and he does wonders with his inner and outer conflicts. Norton is wickedly sleazy as a barely-in-control low life who will undoubtedly end up back in the slammer.