I’ve mentioned Paul was a connector. Through his networking, several of us became regular freelancers for Citysearch.com, an online local guide competing with Microsoft’s Sidewalk.com. We worked with excellent editors like Jeremy, Malin, Lora, Steven, Nathan, Andrea and Josh (and fellow freelancers like Liz) covering everything from local events to movies, music and dining.

I contributed features and reviews, including this one in 1998 about Rounders, the Matt Damon/Edward Norton poker classic. (Looking back now, I especially appreciate Norton’s killer performance. Rounders is a great guy movie.)

ROUNDERS

Reviewed by Stuart Wade

If “Rounders” were a poker hand it’d be a pair of 10s: good enough to win, but barely.   

You gotta play the hand you were dealt, and director John Dahl (“The Last Seduction”) makes the most of it, surrounding the likable Matt Damon with big-league character actors like John Malkovich and John Turturro.  Hollywood hunk-of-the-moment Damon portrays Mike McDermott, a recovering poker addict who tries to settle the outstanding debt owed by his seedy ex-partner, Worm (Edward Norton).  

The story’s recurring themes of choice, fate, talent and luck put Damon’s character into some tight situations — frustrated in love, cursed with a misplaced sense of loyalty, and failing at law school. (And just what is the deal with Matt Damon characters and academia, anyway?)

As a recurring “Rounders” theme says, you can’t run from who you are — and neither can this movie escape its flawed destiny.  It is a humorless, slightly noir tale that just never quite achieves critical mass.  There are flashes of brilliance but no real surprises — just inventive twists on things we’ve all seen before, in movies like “The Grifters” and “House of Games.”  

Stock characters abound: the shady small-timer, the tough-guy loanshark, the just and moral law professor and the disapproving girlfriend.  Chemistry is particularly lacking between supposed pals Mike and Worm. Listless newcomer Gretchen Mol (Jo) plays the disgruntled girlfriend to Damon’s character without ever truly seeming all that interested in him.  (I was rooting for her to leave him from the get-go.)  Disappointingly, the story chooses to leave the door ajar for their unconvincing relationship.

Still, there are terrific moments in “Rounders,” including some nicely-drawn comparisons between the courtroom and the poker table.  Rising star Ed Norton’s performance alone is worth seeing.  The moral conscience of the story is Martin Landau as a Jewish law professor who takes a liking to the hustling law student Mike.  John Turturro, as a bookie-type keeping a fatherly eye on our hero, plays the “mentor from the Dark Side.”  

If you can get past the silly Russian accent, John Malkovich’s performance is (surprise!) the best thing about the film.  As they so often do, Turturro and Malkovich deliver, in spades.  

But in Rounders their heroics come a bit late to improve the movie to say, three-of-a-kind.