Rounders (1998)
No good deed goes unpunished. This is the lesson that is learned by Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) in the 1998 film, Rounders.
McDermott is a pre-law student who, before choosing law as a profession, used to make his living in a far more honorable way, he was a rounder. He gives up on poker when he losses every cent he has in the world to the local hold’em bully, Teddy KGB. When McDermott’s best friend, Worm (Edward Norton) is released from prison, it is obvious he has not changed his poker playing ways, and quickly comes under the thumb of KGB, who he still owes fifteen thousand dollars from some of their former dealings. McDermott, being the friend that he is, takes on Worm’s debt and must earn the entire sum of money in a week’s time in order to save his friend from Teddy KGB.
There is quite a lot of poker action in this movie and most of it is rather good. Not until this movie has anyone ever associated Texas Hold’em with oreos. The only possible complaint that some can take away from this film is that luck is unusually good to McDermott, giving his poker game an almost supernatural quality. Anybody who has ever suffered a bad beat on the river knows that this is simply not the way luck runs, even for the best of players. Things come too easy for the hero of the movie, but otherwise it is quite a good film.
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