“The Card Counter” a new film this year and the masterpiece with Oscar Isaac on Amazon Prime Video from today. The thriller packs in a dark Oscar and an incredibly disturbing finale.
Oscar Isaac is on a franchise tour. After appearing in the X-Men universe, he returned to Disney+ as the heartless Marvel Batman.
But his darkest role to date can now be seen on Amazon Prime: In the exceptional thriller “The Card Counter” he plays a man traumatized by unimaginably cruel deeds.
All the characters in “The Card Counter” are doomed to the hell of acts from the beginning.
Supported by a gripping soundtrack and carried by Oscar, who keeps his character’s war trauma on a leash like a rabid dog.
Broken people engage themselves until they make amends for their criminalities.
As a screenwriter, Paul Schrader earned a reputation for himself in the film industry earlier on: Behind writing the template for Sydney Pollack‘s “Yakuza” and Brian De Palma‘s “Black Angel“, he followed in 1976 with his script for Martin Scorsese‘s work of the century ” Taxi Driver “.
Peculiarities like, “Cat People” or “Mishima” prove the regulation, but as a rule, the works of Paul Schrader pivot lonely, regretful men who despair of themselves and the planet and are thus on a death-desiring quest for saving.
After Schrader make an exceptional comeback in 2017 with the Oscar-nominated “First Reformed “, after being treated as a persona non grata in Hollywood for a long term, ” The Card Counter” started in German cinemas in March of this year.
The complex poker thriller starring “Moon Knight” and “Star Wars 7-9” star Oscar, Tiffany Haddish (“Lady Business“), Tye Sheridan (“Ready Player One“), and Willem Dafoe (“
”) is out today on Amazon Prime Video subscription.
Oscar Isaac’s “The Card Counter“
William Tell states that Oscar perfected the refined art of card counting.
Not just as a hobby but alike to somehow hold his inner monsters under command.
The former elite soldier has a pang of guilt that once landed him in prison for ten years.
After his escape, he starts traveling the States as a poker player, with a tough routine.
While “The Card Counter” got a good 3.5 out of 5 stars in the official FILMSTARTS review, I go several steps further: For me, the new film by Paul Schrader is THE masterpiece of 2022 so far and all other films that made me still expect this year, have to measure up to the disturbingly beautiful gem, as it can deliver in this form just the “Taxi Driver” author.
What is impressive about “The Card Counter” is how virtuously Paul Schrader expresses ambivalence in almost every scene and balances the ambivalence of the characters, which becomes more apparent by the minute.
This leads to “The Card Counter” delivering extreme punches in the pit of the stomach, but in the next moment also reviving bittersweet poetry that genuinely goes to the heart.
It captivated me, depressed me and in the end, perhaps the most memorable of the cinema year, deeply touched me.
Anyone who likes demanding, haunting, precisely written adult cinema should not miss “The Card Counter” 2022 (maybe) won’t get any better.
