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CROUPIER Send This Review to a Friend
With "Croupier," director Mike Hodges, best known for his 1971 "Get Carter," leaps triumphantly back into the public eye. For one thing the film has an interesting protagonist, Jack Manfred, who wants to be a writer but has the skill to work in a casino and, using a connection of his always-hustling father, reluctantly takes a job as a croupier. He doesn't know the steep price to be paid before this icy, atmosphere-packed yarn has been played out. Clive Owen is the perfect Manfred, suavely detached and determined to stay scrupulously honest despite temptations all around him. (He would also make a good James Bond.) Manfred is as fascinating a character as ever moved stoically through a film noir.
Of course, he has to succumb to temptation that not only endangers him at the casino but puts him on a collision course with his principled girlfriend Marion (Gina McKee), who just wants a decent guy to love her. Temptation comes in the form of a woman--what else is new?--and a sexy one at that. Alex Kingston cuts through his protective armor as Jani de Villiers, who has gambled at his table and tells him a story about how she desperately needs money to pay debts or else she is in grave danger. There's cash for him up front and more later, and all he has to do is honestly catch someone cheating so that the resulting altercation will act as a cover for a robbery of the casino. Meanwhile, Bella (Kate Hardie), a waitress at the casino, is yet another temptation.
What makes the film work so well in addition to the seductive casting is the smooth portrait of casino routines, the work of the croupier, the way customers are dealt with and the underlying suspicion of double-dealing at every turn. The relationships are volatile, and all the while Manfred is gathering life material for a book other than the one a publisher wants him to write. In essence we are witnessing a novel in progress enacted before our eyes. As you would expect, there's a twist at the end.
This British import comes without great fanfare, but it is much more satisfying than many higher profile films made on much greater budgets. Since "Get Carter," Hodges has directed such films as "Pulp," "The Terminal Man," "Damien: Omen II," "A Prayer for the Dying," "The Healer," and others, even including "Morons from Outer Space." Now "Croupier" raises the level of his career. A Shooting Gallery release.
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