I'm a big fan of Dario Argento's work; his early works are true works of perfection and have seen most of his stuff and mostly his work do strikes many of emotions such as thrills, tension and brilliant over the top death scenes. But after during the late 90's to present most of his stuff have been hit and miss, and this one from reading the reviews have been classed as a miss. But In my opinion I actually rather enjoyed this effort from him, sure it doesn't have almost none of his trademark technique's. But on its own it does stand as an okay murder mystery.Firstly the plot is a very interesting and intriguing one, we get the old serial killer playing cat and mouse with the police routine, and in this case we get a killer setting up an online poker game with the police force, while using an innocent woman as bait and if they lose, she dies. This does make for a very interesting story line and it does keep the viewer interested in seeing what happens, and I did feel for these victims in that situation, but the fact that nothing is shown, doesn't leave a lasting impression, as nothing is shown afterwards and kind of makes the outcome disappointing.Plus it lacks the stunning visuals that Argento's normally provides, instead the look and feel of the movie, looks very standard, and more towards the mainstream side of things. But the two leads are very decent, Stefania Rocca as Anna was a very strong leading character, she does keep you interested and has a good presence on screen even with the bad dialogue, and Liam Cunningham makes for another good character as her partner John and even their forcibly written romantic subplot, they makes it believable and they do share great chemistry together, along with the both of them fighting their demons does anchor the story along at a nice pace. Also Slivio Muccino was another good addition as the computer wiz kid, he was just brilliant. But the other side characters were just forgettable and were just poorly written.But some of the other aspects of this movie doesn't really work, like the whodunit mystery in which this movie very much relies on, wasn't really inventive or shocking, and the final climax was just very predictable and just plodded along, and even the motive or lack of and honestly had a hard time remembering who he was at the end and just seemed lacking and lazy, but the overacting at the end was rather fun.All in all "The Card Player" is an okay serial killer mystery flick, but for fans of Dario's visual style, you will be sorely disappointed, as this just doesn't take any risks at all and feels just rather safe and plodding.

I watched The Card Player directed by Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red) and contrary to most opinions about this movie, it's not anywhere near as bad as I thought it'd be. Now there are many things that one could easily point out that are and aren't to Argento's level. To begin with, one thing that is easily distinguishable is that the acting is certainly not believable and the dialogue isn't very real either. Now even though the acting isn't good, that's something that's evident in most of Argento's films (including Suspiria, Deep Red, and Tenebre). Another feature in The Card Player that certainly takes away from it is that the music composed by Claudio Simonetti isn't as impressive nor does it play as big of a role in this movie as it has in several other Argento films. Typically, the music of Goblin and Simonetti can be seen as a character itself and acts as one of the key elements to and Argento giallo. While we did see several instances of gore and murder in this movie, the use of the corpses is much too graphic and it's more uncomfortable to watch than scary and that's not something that we're used to when watching these movies. Along this all of these factors, more reasons are the lack of Argento's signature Steadicam use, the lack of beautiful scenery that Argento typically provides, and several cheesy features that include a poker phenomenon and a fat morgue attendant.Now as for the second half of the movie, this is where we saw some true Argento flare. Up until this point, we only saw the victim through a small screen through a web-cam that made the murderer and the murder itself very choppy, unclear, and gritty which is never attractive. When we were finally shown the first scene of the victim in the real setting and saw more of the killer, there was a moment where I felt relief because I really wanted to like this movie and it seemed that it was going in a good direction. At this point, we were finally able to see a true Argento murder when Remo's neck was stabbed with the hook because it wasn't in the form of a snuff film and it was a lot like the scene at the end of another Argento film, Phenomena. Along with Remo's death, John's was another throwback to when the killer in Tenebre was impaled by a statue near the door and if offered another very stylish kill. As to when the killer (The Card Player) was killed, it was in the form of another previous Argento kill when another detective was brutally run over by a train.By the end of the movie, I was very impressed that Argento worked in a very favorable twist when they discovered where the killer stayed and that the kills where very faithful to his usual.

This low budget outing from acclaimed Italian director Dario Argento is about on par with his previous movie, SLEEPLESS. It mixes familiar elements from the giallo film with some new-fangled sequences of torture that have more in common with the SAW franchise, although it's worth mentioning that this film came out a year before the first SAW movie. Essentially, it's nothing we haven't seen before, but it tells the familiar story in a slick and efficient way.Like many movies released around the year 2000, it adds technology to the story. There's a serial killer kidnapping women in Rome, and he taunts the police by offering up the lives of his victims in games of video poker. He wins, the woman dies; he loses, he lets her live. There's little more to the plotting than that, and none of the directorial flourishes or sequences that you'd expect from a director like Argento: this is a film that could have been directed by anybody.Still, if the story's a little too pedestrian, the cast more than make up for it. Stefania Rocca is particularly good as the tough female detective assigned to the case, and she's given excellent support by imported Irish actor Liam Cunningham (THE ESCAPIST), playing a booze-addled copper. James McAvoy lookalike Silvio Muccino is also appealing as the young gambling addict unwillingly drawn into the case.Gorehounds will no doubt feel shortchanged by this outing as most kills are off-screen and the movie feels tame for a director of Argento's repute, although SFX man Sergio Stivaletti has fun by making up some icky dead bodies. Similarly, Claudio Simonetti's score is low key and unmemorable, a far cry from his work on such classics as SUSPIRIA. But accept this film as lesser Argento, like I did, and you might just enjoy it: as a simple suspense flick that ticks all the boxes.

A killer captures young women and then forces the police to play video poker with him to save their lives. Every lost hand, a finger gets amputated... can the police win, and can they be sure a madman will keep his word? Most critics consider this film to be made during Dario Argento's weaker period, because he had abandoned the style of his earlier works ("Deep Red", "Suspiria"). But this is unfair: Argento's "weak" work is still better than many of the other films out there. He is now working with solid production values and his crew have gained experience.Having worked with Argento for decades, this may be Claudio Simonetti's best score ever. He has made more of an atmospheric piece and less of a rock soundtrack. From the opening scene, this feels more like a big budget film. And we have above average corpse design from Sergio Stivaletti.There are some odd moments. The flamboyant, tap-dancing, opera-loving morgue attendant is a big silly, and the video poker game appears cheap and fake. And I'm not sure why they assume the killer used to play Russian roulette... that connection just doesn't add up for me.This is certainly not Argento's best film. Even of his later works, I much prefer "Opera" or "Phenomena" (or even "Sleepless"). But it's still a decent film, and well worth seeing. The DVD from Anchor Bay has plenty of good bonus features: interviews with Argento, an audio commentary and more. Fans of Argento's will eat this right up.