They usually don’t end up with a calm home life upstate, counting their winnings.
It’s not fun to watch someone be prudent and cautious, but to see someone constantly putting his well-being on the line in desperate, irrational hope for that One Big Score … well, gamblers in gambling movies are in many ways just like that veteran cop who takes One Last Case before retirement. Movies about gambling have an inherent drama because, by definition, they’re about risk.
This article originally ran in 2020 and is being republished ahead of the release of Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter.
