Sometime in the last decade, poker crept out of Elks lodges and barracks and onto ESPN.
It's all but impossible to pinpoint the start of a trend, but it's a good bet that everything involving the Texas Hold'em craze can be traced back to a little film called "Rounders."
A slick cross between "Over the Top" and "The Hustler," "Rounders" made poker seem less like the pastime of a degenerate loser and more like the thing to do. Poker seemed so much fun, most guys south of 35 started to join a friendly neighborhood game, get an account on an online site and dream of facing down the best at the World Series of Poker in Vegas. Terms such as "pocket aces" and "fourth street" worked their way into the vernacular.
After watching the film, everyone became an expert at Texas Hold'em, or at least convinced themselves they were experts. The old pros must have thanked heaven for all the new suckers who were pumping cash into their pots.
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Few have made the act of hunkering down over a stack of chips inside smoke-filled rooms more appealing than Matt Damon. As gambling-addicted law student Mike McDermott, Damon clenches his jaw and steels his eyes through thousand-dollar swings, confident that his intellect will pull him through the tough patches and grant him the buzz he compulsively lusts after.
It's said that all gamblers pay to lose, and if that's so, Mike is the man they pay. A New York City law student who prefers hitting all-night poker benders with Russian mobsters to hitting the books, and who would rather caress a stack of chips than his hot girlfriend, Mike sees all the angles and knows how to seize them.
His interpersonal skills may be lacking — the closest he comes to sweet talk is "I'll be really quick. You won't feel a thing" — but he makes up for it at the tables. He's better at poker than Joe Montana was at tossing footballs. One scene in director John Dahl's film has him walking into a poker room, taking note of the players' facial ticks and gestures, then sizing up everyone's hands.
The sequence may seem ludicrous on paper, but Damon pulls it off with commanding authority. He has always excelled at playing a genius, someone who operates on a higher gear than everyone else around him and thinks 12 steps ahead.
Those who care about Mike insist it's a 12-step program he'll need to keep him from ending up like his best pal, Worm (Edward Norton), a scumbag who's just gotten out of jail and looks to be headed back there soon. Mike, a reformed gambler who hit bottom and vowed to fly straight, picks Worm up and immediately falls back into the game. He and Worm set up cons in the back-alley poker underworld, with Worm cheating by dealing off the bottom of the deck, taking saps for their money so Worm can pay off his debtors. Mike gets enough scratch to win his tuition money from Teddy KGB (John Malkovich).
"If you can't spot the sucker in the first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker," Mike says in one of his pithy diatribes, and for the longest time it's never clear whether or not Mike is the sucker. Mike, after all, may be winning at the tables, but he's wrecking his social life and career. And the longer he hangs out with Worm, the more Worm-like he becomes.
The story may not break the standard formula, but the film soars thanks to its performances. Norton, a chameleonic performer capable of taking on any role, gives the game the bad-boy appeal. Malkovich, a sneering, deliriously overacted bundle of Russian stereotypes, is a prototypical melodrama villain.
When all the chips are down, "Rounders" has you stuck to the screen like a sad-sack gambler scanning the table, waiting to see if the next card robs him of his paycheck or makes him a hero. "Rounders" makes you feel the suspense and thrive in the thrill of the moment, always coming up aces.
Rounders (1998). Rated R. Starring Matt Damon. Directed by John Dahl. 121 minutes. Available on DVD. For links to other reviews in the series, go to www.azstarnet.com/sn/review
