10 Minute Version Of The Film 'ROUNDERS'
A few years back I got bored and created a 10 minute edit of my favourite film, ROUNDERS. I didn't publish it for fear of copyright infringement and later just forgot about it. In any case, it is here (for now) for your viewing pleasure!
My editing process was to first create a logical 30 minute version, keeping as many of the important plot driving elements, best moments, and best lines as possible. Next I just kinda spliced away with feckless abandon until I had something that felt right and was exactly 10 minutes long.
Despite minor inconsistencies with technical poker aspects and maybe a few unnecessary eccentricities, the movie holds up very well as a depiction of what poker was like in the 1990s (the film was released in 1998). I would have some natural sense of this having cut my own poker chops in the Montreal underground in the early 2000s, a time when poker was receiving a small bump in popularity thanks to the movie (but nothing compared to the popularity it would gain in 2003 thanks to the Moneymaker Effect, which I wrote about here).
I still remember raising the only nonagenarian in our game, a hunching Eastern European man affectionately nicknamed "Poopy", and having him look me up proclaiming: "I've seen this movie before!" I had the hand that time. I believe he was referencing ROUNDERS in this case, even though the expression likely pre-dates the film.
I suppose the film has a special place in my heart because I was playing poker in situations similar to some of those depicted in the film at an impressionable age (a few years younger than the main characters in the film played by Matt Damon and Edward Norton). For example, aside from underground clubs, my first-ever poker trip was to the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City circa 2002. (I was 21 and won $600 playing $10/$20 Limit Holdem. I was hooked.) The "Taj" is featured prominently in the film.
I also just happen to think that ROUNDERS is a really great fucking film.
Writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien really knew what they were describing. They researched well in NYC the exact scene they wanted to depict. For example, The Chesterfiled Club and surrounding colour in the movie were based directly on a well-known underground club from the period called the Mayfair Club. I recall New York poker players telling me how uncanny the similarities were. The story is good enough and the dialogue and all the sets feel remarkably true to life.
The acting of Matt Damon and Edward Norton is superb. They were popular at the time, but not like they are today. ROUNDERS is an early example of why they became two of the greatest actors of our time.
Director John Dahl is underrated in my opinion. His stuff is gritty, raw, and real, but with just enough pulp to be fun. Rounders could've been a bigger commercial hit had it been less of a neo-noir, but I bet it wouldn't have been as good.
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