The Card Player Review
A killer (called The Card Player) is on the loose, kidnapping young women and setting up poker games on the internet with the police – the stakes are simply the life of those he has. Every hand the killer wins ends with the amputation of something and eventually the killer slitting the victim’s throats.
Out to catch this killer is Police Detective Stefani Rocca, a man with a past, played by Liam Cunningham. This is largely a police procedure movie and we get to encounter the likes of the world’s most annoying coroner, bumbling police chiefs and supporting characters there to fill in the blanks and help with the poker playing. I will say though, this is a film that doesn’t ram the rules of poker down your throat (like Casino Royale did annoyingly) and largely needs you to know the rules of the game already.
This is, essentially, a TV movie made on the cheap and probably filmed a little too quickly. If you are listening to the English dub then be warned this is easily as bad as the dubs on some of those 70s movies, if not worse! This hardly one of Argento’s best but it is interesting and tense enough to follow through without ever becoming bored. Just don’t expect luscious visuals or inspired moments of gore – but we do get to run through the beautiful streets of Rome.
Other familiar names in the credits are Claudio Simonetti and Claudi Argento. Simonetti has updated his synth score to a more modern beat which keeps with the times and is the only thing here adding any kind of momentum to proceedings.
There isn’t much on the extras side here: a short making of and an Argento trailer gallery. There is though (as usual with each Argento release from Arrow Video) a booklet with writing on the film by Argento expert Alan Jones. I can’t enthuse on Jones’ work anymore than I already have in the past, be it interview, book or writing, he always adds value for money.
Steven Hurst