Rounders

Miramax Films | Release Date: September 11, 1998

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

53	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Bruce Diones

Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien have given some crackerjack card-shark dialogue to two hot young actors—Matt Damon and Edward Norton—and together with John Dahl's atmospheric direction they've all made a dream of a poker movie. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Mischievously entertaining...Dahl's film has character in oversupply even if its actual characters are sometimes thin. Poker fever makes up for whatever the story lacks in everyday emotions. Read full review

Nathan Rabin

Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

This isn't a movie where story matters that much: It's a movie of character and milieu, both of which it evokes brilliantly. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

Damon is a magical actor. His mind, as sharp and focused as a laser, beams out of the face of a vivacious choirboy, and, in nearly every scene, he invites you to share the jet-propelled pleasure of his precocious agility. Read full review

Roger Ebert

For a grimmer and more realistic look at this world, no modern movie has surpassed Karel Reisz's "The Gambler'' (1974), starring James Caan in a screenplay by self-described degenerate gambler James Toback. Read full review

Edvins Beitkis

In spite of how hard everything is to believe, you believe what Damon is doing. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Although the storyline is predictable, the intelligent dialogue and top-drawer acting more than make up for the possible deficiency. Read full review

Susan Wloszczyna

Most novel is Rounders' message that the real sin isn't giving into vice but denying your God-given talents and not risking it all. Read full review

David Edelstein

Because I'm a sucker--I was entertained...The script is good at making you think that it has better cards than it really does. And the actors constitute a royal flush--OK, OK, enough with the poker metaphors. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

That is the heart of what's missing here: the buzz that unites these games and players, the seductive lure that excites as it also placates. The dramatic throughline is murky as well...Undeniably good are the performances, however. Read full review

Mark Caro

Lazy, predictable and even dumb about what happens away from the tables. [11 Sept 1998]

Liam Lacey

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. Read full review

Jami Bernard

Oughtta be much bettor.

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

Richly atmospheric but a little thin in the character department: It feels oddly truncated, despite nicely textured performances. Read full review

Peter Travers

Stylish entertainment and smartass fun when director John Dahl ("The Last Seduction") plays his strong suit (a gifted cast) instead of his weakest (a derivative plot). Read full review

Film.comSean Means

Alas, when Rounders lays out its cards, the results aren't as much as you'd been led to believe. But the movie's style and authenticity run a good bluff.

Ron Wells

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

David Sterritt

The acting is solid, but the story builds less drama and suspense than its high-stakes subject might lead you to expect. Read full review

Mick LaSalle

It should have been the poker equivalent of "The Hustler." But it suffers from iron-poor blood. No energy. It just lies there. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Bill Gallo

Damon looks like a kid lost in the wrong neighborhood, and his acting manners underscore that impression--everything is a bit too fine, too neat...An intermittently interesting, intermittently foolish film. Read full review

Ella Taylor

Though the movie looks gorgeous, glittering with the monochromatic beauty of noir transposed into the key of yellow, it chugs along like an overly responsible documentary, more the working out of an idea about the gambler's true nature than a story. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

Intermittently engaging but dramatically slack, this tale...is more interesting around the edges than it is at its core, thanks to the dull nature of the lead character played by Matt Damon. Read full review

Stephanie Zacharek

Neither Dahl nor most of his actors ever quite convince us that there's a good reason to sit in front of a movie screen watching them for more than two hours. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Like Malkovich's out of control Russian accent, Rounders ends up reaching a place too hard to understand and even harder to believe in. Read full review

Film.comRobert Horton

Edward Norton, who created a buzz of excitement in his first year in movies, stubs his toe with Worm... It's the same guy we've seen in countless mean streets pictures, but Norton doesn't find anything new to do with him. He's Ratso Rizzo defanged.

Film.comTom Keogh

Rounders is more involved with the insulated, arcane world of a gambler than it is with the things that actually make a movie work, such as characters and relationships and a script that connects all its dots.

Film.comJohn Hartl

It's "The Hustler with poker and without soul...For all its flash and occasional sizzle, "Rounders" is a disappointment.

Rita Kempley

And while it's intermittently engaging, the drama's flatter than a sucker's wallet. Read full review

J. Hoberman

An unappealing, conventional, and somnolent piece of work in which, as glumly directed from David Levien and Brian Koppelman's corny script, every scene feels like it's being played for the second time. Read full review

David Ansen

Everything in Rounders is right there on the surface. Watching it is about as exciting as playing poker with all the cards face up. [14 Sept 1998]

Jonathan Rosenbaum

A tiresome 1998 rip-off of The Hustler, with poker (in a New York Russian Mafia milieu) taking the place of pool, Matt Damon taking over for Paul Newman, and John Malkovich's scenery chewing supplanting Jackie Gleason's self-effacement. Read full review