Lee Davy reviews the remake of the 1974 movie The Gambler, and gives you his verdict on the movie that believes the only way out is all-in.

It hasn’t been a very good week for me on the movie front. The Birdman didn’t really take off, and The Wild only taught me that if I ever wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) then I would likely have my anus examined by a couple of crossbow holding rednecks.

So I was hoping The Gambler would restore my faith in cinema.

It didn’t.

I’m a gambling addict and so this movie should have been a match made in heaven, but I didn’t really get it? It didn’t connect with me, so how would it connect with the millions of people who are capable of playing roulette without placing a night with their wife on red?

The protagonist is Jim Bennett, a Literature Teacher played by Mark Wahlberg, who has a compulsion to bet everything that he has either playing blackjack or roulette (yes poker peeps you will be sorely disappointed). He isn’t playing to win. If that were the case he wouldn’t be drawing a card when he has 18 face up in a game of blackjack. He did. He hit.

By the time the movie starts he is already $250k deep in debt to a Korean gangster. Then, for no apparent reason (it becomes apparent as the movie progresses), a man approaches him and offers to stake him $50k – he takes it. I say no apparent reason because we never see the guy winning anything, which confuses the reasoning why people would give him money in the first place.