This is the tale of the outlaw trying to go straight but getting pulled back into his old ways ("We can't run away from who we are"), recast as a yuppie success story, set incongruously in the illicit gambling underworld of New York City. John Dahl, somewhat prematurely embraced as the Resurrection and the Life of film noir, has proven his attraction to the proper ambience (here, the card rooms, the brothel, the topless joint, the Turkish bath, the mean streets), but has not proven any special style or feeling for it. Moving further away from straightforward pastiche, he has trouble finding his footing. The undistinguished image -- frigid, dingy, corroded color, with a lot of yellowy light and hollow-eyed cadaverous shadows -- is a doubtful descendant of the Expressionistic black-and-white of the 1940s prototypes. And the compositions are dominated by TV-ish closeups: of a puppy-doggy Matt Damon; of a scenery-chewing Edward Norton; of newcomer Gretchen Mol, vaulting herself to the top of the list for the next major Hollywood production featuring an albino heroine; of a subdued John Turturro; of a mavinish Martin Landau; of a heavily and hilariously Russian-accented John Malkovich. We do get a feeling of gaining admittance to an arcane world, even if much of that feeling derives from incomplete understanding of what the hell's going on at the poker table. (The falsely chummy first-person narration makes a show of putting us wise while keeping us firmly at bay.) The basic plot is painlessly followable, although the Norton character, the motor that drives the entire thing, drops out of the picture without fanfare, to no purpose other than to clear the way for a Happy Ending. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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