The Card Player (2004)

The CardPlayer, the universally hated giallo from maestro Dario Argento is probably his most personal movie since Tenebrae in 1982. It's personal because it once again takes another route in his visual style, away from the overloaded set-pieces and complicated camera-movements. Deep inside I think Argento is tired of what the fans claim to love him for. Remember when he tried to connect to the fans again with Nonhosonno? It ended with a shallow pastiche of his old movies, a simple best of. The Card Player is actually more inspired than Nonhosonno and closer to really good storytelling.

Stefania Rocca is Anna Mari, a police inspector in Rome who one day is contacted by a man who calls himself The Card Player. He has kidnapped a British female tourist and want to play a game of internet poker over her life. Anna Mari, in cooperation with her colleagues and superiors, agrees - but it all ends with the victim being killed in front of their eyes. A British cop, John Brennan (Liam Cunningham) joins the hunt and tries to stop the Card Player to kidnap and kill more girls...

Yeah, the story is pretty basic. Some critics has compared it to CSI and other US crime shows and the format feels a bit television, I can agree on that last thing - but the rumour also says it was originally made for television. The rest is typical standard giallo, but shown from the side of the police. There's not much crime scene investigation and the story concentrates a quite much at the love affair between Anna and John. A love affair that feels both honest and real, and one of the best ever told in a movie by Dario Argento.

What feels clumsy is the internet poker-thingy. At least for us who lives a lot on the web and understands how games like this work. For a normal joe, turning on the telly a dark evening, it means nothing and seems realistic enough. But a good fan always ignores the plot holes in Argento's movies, because all of them have something that actually could destroy the whole story if analyzing it too much. So I choose to just accept that this is a movie and nothing else.

But why is this such a good movie? Well, it has not much gore and blood (but more than Bird with the Crystal Plumage for example!) and the story is just OK, but here's why it's so effective: when I first got it on DVD I showed it to a friend. He was just visiting me and I was preparing to watch the movie and he stayed because he had nothing else to do. This guy is a normal guy. He likes movies, but is no collector. He can't tell an Italian thriller from an American, so here he is: pure. Untainted. We watches the movie and when the credits start to roll in the end he turns to me and say: "Fred, this was a really thrilling and scary movie!".

He don't know who Argento is and he doesn't care. It was a damn good movie. And it's for people like him Argento makes movies. Because of Argento would be making movies for those few fans that think he never should make another movie after Inferno he wouldn't make any movies at all. He's a commercial director, he makes movies for the big masses. Entertainment. Bloody entertainment.

The Card Player has several excellent set-pieces. When the killer attacks Anna in her apartment it's one of the best sequences Argento directed. It's actually, for real, exciting and scary. The actors are uneven, but it's Stefania Rocca and Liam Cunningham who carries the whole movie and makes great performances. Like with Tenebrae, almost a sibling movie when it comes to the style and design, The Card Player will grow and sooner or later be a favourite of many new Argento-fans.