Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

morrison-dylan-fan March 2015:With a poll coming up on IMDbs classic Film board for the best titles of 2004,I decided to watch auteur film maker Dario Argento's 2004 Giallo.Despite having recently gotten a brand new DVD player,the machine kept jamming up 20 minutes into the flick,which eventually led to me giving up on Dario's poker,and instead watching Eros Puglielli's tense 2004 Giallo Eyes of Crystals.July 2015:Since having recently picked up an cheap back-up DVD player, (which came with no remote,and only has a play/pause button!)I felt that it was the perfect time to go back to the table,to finally play a round with the card player.The plot:Arriving at the police station,officer Anna Mari receives an E-Mail containing a photo of a kidnapped girl,with a message from the kidnapper saying that he wants the police to play a game.As the cops try to make sense of what is taking place,an internet poker screen pops up,with the kidnapped victim being shown on the side in a web cam.Offering the victims freedom if the cops can win a 5 round game of poker,Mari is ordered by the Commissioner not to take part in this bluff,which leads to the stranger brutally killing the kidnapped victim.Fearing that a serial killer is on the loose,Mari begins to closely work with a sacked British police officer called John Brennan in building a profile of the killer,who is continuing to haunt the police by winning the deadly rounds of poker.Staying away from the table since her dad killed himself over his gambling debt,Mari decides that she must now take a seat at the table,in order to get the killer winning hand.View on the film:Originally planned as a sequel to The Stendhal Syndrome, (which got stopped when Asia Argento decided to leave Italy for Hollywood)the screenplay by co-writer/(along with Jay Benedict/Phoebe Scholfield & Franco Ferrini) directing auteur Dario Argento got dealt a number of bad hands which led to the ending being changed 3 times,and the cast largely improvising the dialogue.Despite everything being stacked against it,the writers are still able to deliver a gripping Giallo,with the dial-up internet (aww..the bad old days!) poker games create a tense atmosphere,as each turn of the cards switches the advantage between Mari & the killer.Whilst the more improvise nature sadly leads to the clues to the identity of the murderer mostly feeling like a last minute addition,the writers deliver aces high set pieces which strike an excellent techno-Giallo mood,which goes from the main clue allowing Argento to return to the theme of people being connected to nature,to a delightfully bonkers Silent movie-style railroad track final.Interestingly keeping lush colours solely shown in the garden of the killers secret location,Argento & cinematographer Benoît Debie attack the Giallo with a brittle Film Noir hue,by completely draining any colours and covering the title in a decaying grunge of greys and browns,which perfectly expresses the bleak disconnection that the cops have to the on-screen victims.Contrasting the tar-pit look of the movie,Argento slides across the poker table with rapid tracking shots kept in to the beat of Claudio Simonetti's electronic score,which along with allowing Argento to show ever corner of the burnt out city,also allows Dario to deliver ever twist in the cards with a real precision,as Mari tries to find the killers royal flush.

Theo Robertson You can see this having some potential with a premise of " Psychological thriller where a serial killer plays mind games with cops on the internet involving card games " . It's a relatively idea to pitch and the internet and home computers were really taking off round about the time this film was produced . I do remember being connected to the net in March 2001 and coming across " The Official Gary Glitter website " and finding something called a guestbook that seemed to contain threats of violence and other mayhem quite often by people with extreme right wing affiliations . In amongst fits of laughter that made me resemble someone having an epileptic fit I decided to send my own kind regards to Glitter and hoped he and all his fans received a good slap in the face with a stanley knife . I then found a link on the website celled " Contact the webmaster " and thinking a " webmaster " might be a sort of internet police thing controlling what is put up on the interweb I then wrote off to them saying something along the lines that Glitter was a convicted paedo and needed executing while the Glitter website needed closed down instantly . It might sound ridiculous now but I thought that's what a webmaster was . I was shocked to discover a couple of hours later that the website was still going and that the guestbook now contained my name and email address along with a message along the lines of " Hey lay off Gary you Nazi freaks . Gary's the best and you know it " that was accredited to me " I also noticed there was a few messages in my email inbox from people I'd no knowledge of and gave up reading them after the first couple were less than complimentary to put it mildly . I then had to undergo the indignity of going on to a Neo-Nazi website and posting an open letter on the forum saying I didn't write that message on the GG website and could people stop sending me death threats . To be fair I did get a nice email from one of them saying he never made any threats to me and he thought I was a good guy because I wanted Gary Glitter to be tortured to death . I couldn't agree more I'm obviously digressing a little bit but THE CARD PLAYER plays hard and fast where the internet is concerned . Someone is using several servers and that's why the cops can't get a trace ? Yeah sure it is . I'm sure if they bothered they could trace he source very easily but I guess because it's a film where some suspension of disbelief is needed . Unfortunately some entertainment is needed also and we really don't get much . Being an Argento film you're expecting a bit more in the way of horror stakes and we don't get them and nor do we get much in the way of thriller element . It's very talkative and that's maybe the problem . Irish actor Liam Cunningham ( Somewhat surprisingly cast ) is god enough in his role but that's probably because he's using his own voice where as I'm fairly certain the Italians are speaking in their own language and they've been re-dubbed in post production . This means we're unrealistic or inappropriate inflexion every time they open their mouths and when you've got a film that revolves around people talking , talking and talking the film has to work on both the dialogue and the way the cast deliver it and in that way alone THE CARD PLAYER is something of a failure

callanvass (Credit IMDb) A Rome policewoman teams up with a British Interpol agent to find a crafty serial killer whom plays a taunting game of cat-and- mouse with the police by abducting and killing young women and showing it over an Internet web cam. Eh. I suppose it could have been worse. Argento seems to have given up on being the innovator he once was. It's not like his work is terrible these days, but it's bland and uninspired, compared to what he used to be. Routine work like this seems to be so beneath him, but I digress. Like a lot of Argento movies. Most of the actors are dubbed, so it's really hard to rate the performances in this movie. I can't stand dubbing, so I can't really comment on that. The deaths are quite average for an Argento movie. We do get a gross autopsy sequence, a hook in the neck, among other things, but it's sub par for Argento. I was impressed with the finale in this one. It was adroitly shot with some OK suspense with a predictable culprit. My problem was until the finale, everything feels tacked on and uninspired. See it if you're a huge Argento fan, others needn't bother. It's watchable, but completely forgettable. I don't remember much about it at all5/10

gavin6942 A killer captures young women and then forces the police to play video poker with him to save their lives. Every lost hand, a finger gets amputated... can the police win, and can they be sure a madman will keep his word? Most critics consider this film to be made during Dario Argento's weaker period, because he had abandoned the style of his earlier works ("Deep Red", "Suspiria"). But this is unfair: Argento's "weak" work is still better than many of the other films out there. He is now working with solid production values and his crew have gained experience.Having worked with Argento for decades, this may be Claudio Simonetti's best score ever. He has made more of an atmospheric piece and less of a rock soundtrack. From the opening scene, this feels more like a big budget film. And we have above average corpse design from Sergio Stivaletti.There are some odd moments. The flamboyant, tap-dancing, opera-loving morgue attendant is a big silly, and the video poker game appears cheap and fake. And I'm not sure why they assume the killer used to play Russian roulette... that connection just doesn't add up for me.This is certainly not Argento's best film. Even of his later works, I much prefer "Opera" or "Phenomena" (or even "Sleepless"). But it's still a decent film, and well worth seeing. The DVD from Anchor Bay has plenty of good bonus features: interviews with Argento, an audio commentary and more. Fans of Argento's will eat this right up.