Rounders

     Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) loses all the money he has saved in a poker game he played against a russian mobster, Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). After loosing all his savings, he decides to retire from Poker, he takes a crappy job and starts studying in law school. If he plays Poker again his girlfriend will leave him, she wants him to stay away from that because she knows what it has done to him.

A couple of months later Mike's best friend Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of jail and quickly gets him back to the gaming circuit. After a night of playing and kicking some butts, Mike recognizes it was the first time he felt alive since his last Poker game, the one against KGB. After his girlfriend discovers this she leaves him.

Worm had some debts he had to pay, so Mike is going to help him get some money in a a few days or else he would get into a lot of trouble. Somehow they screw up and lose all their money, so Mike has only once chance now to win big money, play against KGB again. But will he lose again?

Besides a film called "Maverick" this is the only cards movie I've ever seen, and I must say it was great. The film is very realistic when it shows how addiced you can get with games such as poker. We all know there are addicted gamblers out there, but in the film Mike makes clear that it's not gambling, it's a skills game. Matt Damon gave a great performance, I really liked him, and Edward Norton was brilliant as always, he is definitely one of the best actors of his generation; some say he is the next De Niro. John Turturro playing a career poker player was pretty cool, and Martin Landau playing a law professor was pretty good also. Landau understands Mike's situation, and instead of telling him to get away from Poker, he tells him "we can't run from who we are", in other words he said "go play Poker, you're a Poker player". This film is mostly about Poker but it's more entertaining than just watching a Poker match. Damon's narrating is one of the coolest I've seen, and Malkovich's russian accent is actually funny. I'd recommend this anytime, I really enjoyed it.

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