Schroeder is not a particularly promoted director, but he competently helped Scorsese create masterpiece films, signing strong in structure and composition. Dynamics of the script ("Taxi Driver", "Mad Bull"), remembers this director on the magnificent work "American Gigolo" (1980), where Ingeniously, in business, freshly and tenaciously... Richard Gere played this thing, I remember it very well, because I know that this role was offered. John Travolta, and in the end got Gere, still very young and he's just here center, the raisins. So Schroeder didn't discount it. And I saw this picture. In general, the psychological line of all the author's films of recent years can be calculated, Paul is talented. People try to pass their images through drama and through the political component. No exception to this thriller. Here in the plot, the bet is not only on poker and card player and the closedness of the Personality of Oscar Isaac (his character). but also American A vital and epochal line of revealing the image of America as a country in its strategically important points. Very interesting shades in the flashback part of the game of red and yellow and therefore, I note in addition to the director's work - also Cinematography. Isaac plays the cold-blooded, absolutely cold look of the killer and for the thriller such a layout of the main role justified. I didn’t expect the film to be so strong, across all the branches, including the melancholy amplified in the guitar. Well-composed film.8/ 10.👌 Review written: September 28, 2021, Olya Grinevskaya (Alenushka).
I watched Paul Schroeder’s film The Card Counter, 2021. The director and screenwriter Schroeder is best known as the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which I liked. I also like Oscar Isaac, who I also like. Former military officer William Tell, as he now calls himself, after serving 8.5 years in a military prison where he was placed for war crimes of torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, was released and quietly engaged in playing cards in casinos, a game he learned in prison. He doesn’t stick out, he doesn’t strive for big wins, although he could, abilities allow, but he wants to be an unrecognizable player. He travels from one casino to another, stays only in motels and then for one night, and each time his bed is accompanied by a ritual - he wraps or covers with cloth all objects in the room, and at night writes a diary. But one day he accidentally attends a conference at which his former mentor speaks, who taught him all the methods of so-called interrogation with bias, which thrives on itself, then imprisoned only small performers, but not the authorities. At this conference, one guy turns to him, meeting with whom, he learns that this is the son of his former colleague, who flew out of his wits after prison and then committed suicide, the son wants to avenge him, so he turns for help to his father’s former colleague. And here the measured life of Bill goes beyond the limits established for himself. Due to the fact that Bill himself constantly feels remorse for what he did in the past, he hopes that he will be able to dissuade the guy from his plans, he begins to play big to save money and help him. Everything seems to be starting to work out, at least he thinks so. But he underestimated the stubbornness of the guy, he just deceives him, as a result of which he dies, and Bill, having decided to avenge the guy, again goes to prison, where he essentially sends himself. I think that not everyone will like the film, but I watched without effort, I do not scare off such a leisurely narrative, although, of course, topics of this kind have been raised more than once in the cinema, but they nevertheless do not become less relevant.
Another brilliant American director goes all-in and shows his disagreement with what is happening around him. He does not fall into high-brow politicking, just in the structure of his tape there is no place for accidents.
That is why the birthplace of the strange activists who glorify America fits so clearly into the current agenda. It is no coincidence that Bagram and Abu Ghraib are also mentioned. But it's momentary. . .
In fact, the same frantic Travis Bickle is whirling before us. Then there was another agenda - Vietnam and Nixon. And in the center of attention is a strong person who cannot fully decide who he should be with. To live in a crowd or to show yourself?
And if Bickle’s destructiveness was more like teenage stress, then our hero’s syndromes were acquired through the intervention of the state machine. Throughout the film, he tries to take a humble position, forgive himself and get forgiveness. Ironically, the talent given to him can play a cruel joke.
But that's all I want to say about the story. The tape is worth watching and there will be no more clues here. I like that cold style. Schroeder manages to show loneliness in a crowded hotel. And there is a kind of spiritual truth in this, bribing frankness.
Oscar Isaac's performance brings to mind Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. That tape was sorely lacking. But age is age. Isaac did nothing outstanding, but he coped with a difficult role. However, who knows - if in the lead role an actor with a large range, the effect of the simplest scenes could be more powerful.
8 out of 10
Three murderers: one unsuccessful involuntarily, the second is a pro, the third is in prison.
It was in prison that I learned to count cards. Why should I make money, kill time, kill my brain, kill those who deserve it?
I have a peculiar life. I'm a peculiar person. I have my own rhythm. I'm unsociable. Knitting furniture in fabric. I don’t want to be distracted, where is it possible?
I have modest goals. The humble are respected. Modest people don't usually touch. They don’t seem to notice them, even modest prisons. Shall we play poker?
_
Maybe your whole life is a casino where you make big or small bets. Put the days, months, years of your life. Maybe one day you get bored... and you’ll bet... you’ll bet your whole life. Whether it's Russian roulette with a gunshot, cards, a one-armed bandit - but you will.
You seem smart, wise, even. You know you can't bet a lot at a time. You can’t risk everything, especially if the odds of winning in reality are dim. But excitement is excitement. Perhaps not even ordinary excitement, but the excitement of revenge.
We all have our own casino. Not all of us go bet to win something banal. Casinos are divided. In our invisible casino, you can win anything from money and fame to retribution ... you can win evil, you can get good a little ... a little redemption.
_
This movie seems a bit anti-American. And perhaps even those Americans who constantly criticize America will not like it. And it is not just the slippery subject of torture by military prisoners of war. Nobody likes cheaters, especially when you lose something valuable to them that you have.
But the film catches, if you overpower yourself and watch more than 5-10 minutes, along the way crippling review.
I never understood the rules of the cards, the names of the cards and everything. Perhaps they are just such that they can understand only gambling in moderation. My excitement was enough only for the simplest card games and a little for computer solitaire.
But what you need to be a person to not just play in the hope of winning, losing constantly, but really live in the world of gambling, in the world of excitement, earning a living. To be in it all the time, to love even something in it. What kind of person do you have to be? What kind of person does one have to be to make a living by stealing, murdering, etc.? Thieves are different, for example, working in structures such as MMM, Lehman Brothers, etc. Killers come in all sorts, too. They kill in war, too. Our hero was engaged in torture while in uniform. Many human rights organizations and individuals today claim that some forms of torture are even worse than murder.
Crossing the world of cards and the world of torture - it is necessary to manage, and even hit at the same time on rather painful American topics. This is something like Oliver Stone, perhaps, but even he did not try to cross the unbreeding, as it seems.
_
What if. . .
Dig deeper. There are people who calculate life. They know exactly what cards are in the deck... they know exactly what cards are out, what are left in the deck of life. And such people are dangerous, especially if they are unremarkable, modest, nothing is expected of them. They're particularly dangerous. And they're very strange. They have their quirks. My bizarre life. They can calculate everything: when and with what probability to expect good and evil.
Perhaps the author of this tape is a very strange and dangerous person. He knows exactly how to put an idea into your mind. Perhaps the author of this review is the most dangerous person.
Or it's just a mediocre movie, like a review, where we're trying to find something to justify wasting time.
The career of filmmaker Paul Schrader somehow immediately set. His debut was writing the script for Sidney Pollack's film Yakuza (1974). He then collaborated with Bryan De Palma on the 1976 thriller Delusion. Then in his career, Schrader began a period of close creative relationship with Martin Scorsese himself and his result was the release of such films as Taxi Driver (1976), Mad Bull (1980) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which long ago became classics of world cinema. Meanwhile, Paul Schrader often found himself in the director’s chair when making films based on his own scripts. His films include The Conveyor (1978), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) and Daylight (1987). Although other works of the filmmaker attracted critical and spectator attention, and for his script for the drama “The Shepherd’s Diary” (2017), Schrader even got into the list of nominees for the Oscars, although let’s be frank and say that then the chances he had quite a few.
And at the moment, the last work of Paul Schrader is the film “The Card Counter”, which was released in 2021, which absorbed the genres of thriller, drama and crime. In the center of the plot is someone named William Tell (Oscar Isaac). He is a mysterious person with a dark past. And now he earns by playing cards, learning how to count them, and using his own strategy, which helps him remain elusive to the security services of various casinos. But still something amazing in the behavior of Tell: when he removes another unsightly room to go unnoticed, he opens his suitcase, and there the sheets with which he covers all the furniture in the room, pulling it together with harness threads. This strangeness in Tell's behavior comes from somewhere in his past, which is shrouded in dark moments, for which William cannot forgive himself. And then one day a woman named La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) approaches him, and a young man (Tai Sheridan) looms on the horizon, who has his own goal of meeting William Tell. . .
After watching "Cold Calculation" and some analysis of what was seen on the screen, one has to agree with the opinion of most critics that the film turned out to be "raw". There are so many unsaid things in it that there are more questions to the plot and its characters than you get answers. Although to be fair, it should be noted that other critics admired the Cold Calculation. But, of course, this is a purely subjective matter for everyone. But for me, “Cold Calculation” turned out to be a very painful and tedious action, in which practically nothing happens, and they try to give us the deep emotional experiences of the main character, who in the past did things that make ordinary people feel nauseous and outright condemnation. But the plot only briefly tells us why William Tell did what he did. And now he allegedly wants to do something noble to find a way to somehow forgive himself. And in this he is helped by an unexpected young man, whom Tell takes with him on a trip to the casino. . .
And there's a lot of 'why', 'why', 'something', and that just goes to show that there's too much inefficiency in Cold Calculation that creates a bunch of questions that we never get answers to. Not very clear relationship between Tell and La Linda, again about their acquaintance is mentioned in passing. What goals Tell pursues is also not entirely clear. It is impossible to feel the depth of the tragedy that connected the heroes of Isaac and Sheridan. And for me personally, it remains obvious that the whole Cold Calculation is based on acting. Isaac's languid gaze, which literally permeates you right through, makes you snap. His brief but wise words make you think. But it’s probably the best thing about Cold Calculation, which is why Isaac’s character is so enigmatic. The most active in the slow film was Tiffany Haddish, who became interested in her game after the failed “Real bosses” (2020). Young Ty Sheridan tried very hard, but it seemed that he did not fully understand his hero. And here flashes Willem Dafoe, who often shoots with Paul Schrader. By the way, these four actors are limited to the main game ensemble "Cold Calculation".
Still, there is such a strong belief that if Paul Schrader had worked more carefully on the script, the film would have left a much more favorable impression. And it so happened that in the action of "Cold Calculation" you have to look for positive moments like the actors, because Schrader has a lot that didn't work out in this film. In particular, there was not enough thoughtfulness, clear plot landmarks and depth of the narrative, that is, again, we have to state that “Cold Calculation” turned out to be very “raw”. But the potential was there and with the right approach to the production we could get a strong brutal drama with a shocking past of the main character, which makes “Cold Calculation” in something unique.
5 out of 10
On September 23, the drama “Cold Calculation” was released on the screens of Russia. It's hard to say why in 2021, all the decent movies stayed in the shadow of a dense forest, but I'm glad I didn't miss a rare needle in a haystack. Skip the novelty from Schroeder was easier, but forget what you saw is much more difficult. His author's handwriting can not be confused with anything and in front of his face immediately pop up his past paintings - "Mad Bull", "Taxi Driver". Schroeder’s characters are not about minimalism in the frame, his characters are about demons that have to fight and lose the battle. If the character of the characters can be identified dependence, then in the visual style of his films it is not. The visual of each picture is unique, which cannot but please the avid moviegoer.
It's the only air that Bill Poker has left. In hundreds of handouts, he tries to forget who he was in the past and what he did. Guilt devours him from within and makes him a mystery in the eyes of others. Eyes full of longing and hopelessness of being no longer sparkle with the former brilliance. The prison on the other side of the fence breaks a man, only Bill feels guilty, and the others forget and live in illusion. The past draws the vitality out of him and the only thing left for him is to travel around the states, hoping not to leave a trace in his present.
The main character avoids everything that reminds him of his sin. But hiding furniture, sharp objects and memories will not work with the help of white sheets, they will always come out. Immersing himself in a snow-white sleepy reality, Bill seems to be trying to hide the stench of prison and rotting guilt. But the only thing that keeps him afloat and gets rid of suicidal thoughts card. Maps, maps and more maps. Everything repeats in a circle: the first hand-advantage, the second hand-regularity, the last hand-victory. A strict regime, a regularity, the secret of which can be revealed, does not resemble anything? He is completely immersed in prison and even in the will, he does not feel the smell of freedom. Only stench and dog barking.
Oscar was brilliant and I believed him. It was hard not to believe when the cold logic of a criminal in eternal prison is not a theory, but a demonstrative practice, hitting the audience with a key. Through his eyes, the past beats, prison screams and whispers a plea for mercy, which he brilliantly holds within himself. It seems that Isaac was created for this role, his penetration into the psychological trauma of the hero is astounding. But the secondary characters behind their appearance have nothing under their clothes, as if their characters were gathered in a hurry to get into the rental for 21 years. They have no charisma, no chemical connection between them and Isaac. And you try to squeeze as much out of their role as possible, but with every second they get lost along with the poker background of the film.
The film cuts, stabs, penetrates deep, causing the hair to swell from the inside. This picture uses the same methods that opened the chain of abuse of prisoners. But there's a huge difference. What happens to our minds during the film is illusory, contrived, but what happens to the prisoners is real. Helps to cut the viewer and musical range, which intersects with the visual picture of the film. It gets creepy, renunciation, cold, but the degree in the film keeps rising and rising. And the eardrums spill sinful blood.
The excitement is added to the inner tension with every minute, the pace of the story accelerates and now we are no longer a hotel without traces of the past, but a black and white ball that jumps on the poker table. Nausea gradually gets to the throat, scenes from his past pop up. A past that cannot be forgotten. A past that leaves no hope of saving the soul. And in the end, everything crumbles, the mirror with scenes from the past is broken into small pieces. Everyone gets his piece of broken glass, which will leave his merciless scar. Cold calculation is not about card regularity and melancholy of life. “Cold Calculation” is a confessional game that not everyone is allowed to touch.
Can you tell if you have reached that limit?
8 out of 10
Paul Schroeder continues his own research in the world of crime and misunderstood loners. The point is, now to the story.
This year, a new film appeared on the screens of Hollywood master Paul Schroeder, best known as the screenwriter of “Taxi Driver”, and otherwise a well-known director of all sorts of research, which wander around and near the unfading classics.
In this case, the former military, played by Oscar Isaac, who served time in prison and trained himself to play poker, with an impenetrable face and slick hairstyle, skates around the states, participating in card tournaments and approaching the World Series. A beautiful romantic idyll of a lone wolf is interrupted by a woman softening his proud gaze and a guy dreaming of avenging his father, which melts the hero’s heart. The card game ceases to be peace, the vocation is already abandoned life.
Schroeder is still a screenwriter here, only beyond paper and symbols, his atmospheric passages are not selected. Trying to work in his favorite style, he, like a meticulous architect, recreates the picture from the samples, not being ashamed of the copies, repetitions and intersections that his heroes have crossed more than once. However, it is not destined to effectively get out of this trap. Partly because it's losing out on time, which has leapt ahead and requires more authenticity and engagement. Partly because it does not penetrate into the director’s layer, preferring to draw a picture from written and predefined sketches.
As a result, the photographic hero does not go beyond the glossy image, his experiences are random and far from the viewer. The anxiety of minor heroes is solitary and has no roots. They enter the stage with a task, after which they silently withdraw. America is not visible behind the road and movement, for satiety it respond screaming accompanying one of the players, waving their flags and securing the right to the brand “USA”. There is no world tour. Not in the sense of “world” as a word for which it is customary to fix national American tournaments. Not in the sense of "world" as having weight within at least one state.
The denouement is the result of a decision, behind which there was a mental emptiness.
Maybe that's the metaphor of loneliness, because this story might not have gone off the highway, changed motels, left a secret room in a pub, swiping rubbed stained cards from a round table. From the past to the future, there was no need to go out. It was important to win at some point.
Hypnotizing Oscar Isaac shows with all his appearance that everything was right. We believe him.
Paul Schroeder is a living classic of Hollywood, one of his scripts for the legendary creations of Scorsese “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” who wrote his name in the annals of world cinema. In the directorial field, Schroeder’s not everything is so clear: most films quietly pass by the audience’s radar, responding in eternity only at independent cinemas and festivals. But, it seems, recently the screenwriter / director has opened a second wind, and now the second film in a row, Schroeder powerful volley announces the vast expanses of cinema, proving that there is still gunpowder in the gunpowder at the old guard. The drama about the crisis of faith in the 21st century with the brilliant performance of Ethan Hawke 4 years ago, many made the list of the best, and the recently released production drama from the life of gamblers and military veterans, most took very warmly.
William Tell, a gambler, a man with a dark past and a former military man who served time in prison. Traveling in his car from one casino to another, he talks about his gambling philosophy - not to raise bets at a minimum chance of success, raise them only if they are above average calculations, and not to win a lot. Tell learned to count cards well in prison, where routine and monotony allowed him to dive into counting and distract from the past and the present.
When watching Calculation, it is not difficult not to notice parallels with the atmosphere and depressing mood of Schroeder’s most famous script work, which made him famous all over the world. Travis Bickle and Will Tell seem to exist in the same universe: and if the former, under the onslaught of anger and rage, is no longer able to cope with its dark essence, then the latter is worthily holding a defense - painfully endless, exhausting, threatening to destroy itself. Bickle breaks into this abyss, but Tell only hovered over its alluring darkness and the homage ellipsis, referring to the great creation of Michelangelo Buonarroti, gives a ghostly hope for salvation.
Both characters are people disfigured by their military past, one by a war half a century ago, the other by a war of the 21st century: the vicious circle of the eternal confrontation of a great America, in its fierce struggle with constantly appearing enemies on the horizon, generating only countless destinies and wounded souls. Bickle and Tell, with their desperation, try to break out of the deadly clutches of their ugly past by saving lost young creatures. But can this Sisyphean work of salvation lead all sides to the long-awaited rebirth and enlightenment? The answer to this rhetorical question in both films is almost identical, but in Calculation it is less pessimistic and radical. All you need is love. In the history of Tell, at least she has creative power.
Schroeder's films are a platform for first-class acting outpourings. Oscar Isaac’s play is extremely cold and emotionally stingy, but in this concentration and apparent detachment, an incredible break is felt and constant vibrations are felt from the constantly ongoing struggle hero in the soul. This year, Isaac does not cease to please the versatility of his talent: “Dune”, “XR”, the series “Scenes from married life” – every time a memorable image and the most accurate game in characters.
In general, enveloping and skillfully tightening his narrative meditation drama. Thoughtful, sedate and brutishly ruthless in her statements.
Yes, the Gnostic Ilda Baoth, who for thousands of years rejected the middle space that the lower Sophia confided to him, now apparently due to the contradictions hanging over him, found himself in great difficulty and building his own world according to the results of inexorable technical progress is now becoming increasingly difficult, because Bodies are now changing too unpredictable, and the noumenal along with the phenomenal world has already broken out of control and embarked on an open, free journey, no longer listening to anyone!
The creative intelligentsia, apparently fully aware of what all this can promise, even at the end of the last saturated decade, decided at once, without blundering, to send all, to put it mildly, unsightly directions to the garbage, and in the course laid out all the cards to the writers, filmmakers and other actors on the table, with the instruction “lie as much as you want, but only do not lie.”
And finally, the viewer waited for this most creative summary from Paul Schroeder - "Cold Calculation" (!) performed by the brilliant and cold-blooded Oscar Isaac (!), apparently now called upon to reveal, with the subsequent elimination, this malignant growth, which artificially, as if involuntarily, grew between Mohammedans and Jews. This one reads between the lines.
In the course of the script, it is clear that William Tell (Oscar Isaac), a soldier of the U.S. Army who honestly performed his duty to the country in the Abu Ghraib political prison, being convicted of well-known abuses, which, as Paul Schroeder put it, were initiated not because of the notorious fight against terror in the face of the Muslim world, but, as it were to put it more modestly, well, in general, it is not appropriate to talk about what, but I think, for several other purposes.
So, William Tell, who served eight and a half years for this, during which he learned to cold-bloodedly calculate card combinations, freed himself and with a clear conscience went to conquer American Casinos and in the course of the development of the plot meets with another character Kirk Belfort (Tai Sheridan), after a short but meaningful conversation which turned out that Paul Schredor blinded these two characters - one Hero, in two well-known, albeit somewhat obscure hypostases. At least, if such a symbiosis is allowed, Paul Schroeder’s difficulties in reading Cold Calculation disappear by themselves. And in this context, the well-known parallel from the new adaptation of Dune (2021) from Denis Villeneuve, where Oscar Isaac brilliantly performed Duke Leto I - the head of the Atreides house, turned out to be very useful.
The circle of necessity closed and the denouement did not take long to wait, in the course of which it turned out that as a result of an irreconcilable hand-to-hand fight (which we were not shown) in the place of Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe), no one else stood up, but William Tell, with which perhaps he should now be congratulated, although he too may suffer the same fate, since movement and progress cannot be stopped.
It must be admitted that the associative pairs, which Paul Schroeder stated in his frankly undisguised substrate, turned out to be very meaningful, and along with high-quality selected music, where the really cold-blooded Oscar Isaac bribed with his charisma and qualitatively, indeed, very qualitatively performed a card player, the film, even despite the somewhat gloomy atmosphere, turned out to be excellent and caused a lot of positive emotions. For a feature film, I would say very dignified.
Very specific tape, which has positive reviews and high rating. A drama about a former prisoner who is free to play cards, lives one day and reflects on a cruel and unjust case of the past. Immediately it is worth highlighting the pros of the picture, since the drawn-out narrative gives excitement only for the final.
Oscar Isaac's performance is great. Cold and calculating - the localizers did not cheat. We are met by a brutal, serious man with his secrets, fears and a sense of justice. The initial shots are dipped into the card life of the casino, explaining the advantages of a single cell with prison flashbacks. A kind of peace and tranquility. The emphasis on this is made for a reason, and given the final denouement, a beautiful twist of the tape is visible.
Cards, modest gains, caution. In parallel with the games, we are immersed in Isaac’s dreams, which explain his past and impress with a wide-angle camera, creating an effect of presence. The contrast to the place of the present time – calm and measured – and memories perfectly convey the drama and cruelty. Acquaintance with Tai Sheridan on the plot serves for a big tie, but the tape begins to limp. Monotony more compresses the plot, and constant conversations about the past, about possible retaliation somehow allow you to find out the reasons for the prison adventures of Duke Leto Atreides.
Director Paul Schroeder compares card coolness and calmness with the life of Oscar after prison, and Shiridan like a new hunter for cash, trying to cover the fear and sense of duty boring routine. The conversations of the main characters personify the relationship between father and son, but at the same time do not lead to any result. There is tension, but no exhaust. As a result, they did not play cards, and did not deal with their past.
For a change in the film, the ambiguous female character Tiffany Haddish tries to steer Oscar on the right path of the card tournament. The metaphor of the film is that the characters see problems from the outside, but avoid participation. This is served by the same team of poker winners annoying in the background. This is evident in Sheridan’s constant parting, who only speaks but does not. The general atmosphere of dullness and stupor is mixed with cruel flashbacks, stretching the nerves more and more.
After an hour of timing, you're already waiting for some kind of explosion. He's coming on all fronts. Sheridan is acting, Isaac is acting, Haddish is conditioning. Was it worth the expectation? Nope. It was possible to show the tension shorter, give more time for romance, show the failures of the young guy, and also reveal the main idea of Oscar, so that the final scene with Willem Dafoe did not explain in 15 minutes the sense of duty and justice.
In the end, the picture disappointed. Of course, Paul Schroeder's thought is interesting, and the associations and comparisons with maps are laudable. Impeccable Oscar Isaac, passionate Tiffany Haddish, beautiful color contrast and the difference in camera work of sleep and reality occupy the positive side of the tape, but the lead to the climax, the long swing, empty dialogue and inappropriate scenes spoil the viewing. Discomfort from tightness smooths the finale, but the aftertaste remains.
When the mistakes of the past lead to a hopeless situation, and there are no good or bad - only traumatized people with varying degrees of guilt, and everyone will inevitably get their own.
Prison minimalism. Asceticism. Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius in his cellmates. Discipline, calmness and concentration are coercive but desirable. Going free is nothing more than a formality when you are isolated for life in a mental isolation. All the same conditional model reality. Any decorativeness is tightly wrapped in colorless matter, leaving objects only a form with fuzzy contours - only a general essence. Blurred perspective. It's faded. An endless series of identical days, colored by a rich palette of scanty shades: gray, dark blue, brown and their derivatives. The rituals of sensory deprivation in motels are shuffled with games in the motley-sparkling and noisy, but no less depressing, casino interiors. There and there are sealed spaces with no connection to the outside world and no sense of time. This is William Tell's limb. Once he lost control and crossed the border of man - a fatal mistake that has become an eternal burden: how much do not wrap the closet with white cloth, and the skeletons in it will not hide from you. Now to keep yourself in hand helps a kind of test - gambling. Tell feels composure, playing blackjack or poker all day long. Winning blackjack is not a problem: for 8 years of imprisonment, he learned to count cards like a computer, the task in another is not to get carried away, limit himself to a modest gain and not to attract the attention of security. When it comes to poker, there are two things you need to do: identify probabilities and understand people. Tell has mastered both skills professionally. It's impossible to read it yourself. His poker face is a mask he never takes off. Even when he's not playing.
Count the cards, keep your emotions out, take your piece and leave. Repeat. The routine rhythm is disrupted by an echo from the past - the son of fellow worker Kirk - Cirk through C (circle - circle). What is it? An opportunity to finally settle his conscience, rebuilding the lives of another victim of his damned past and breaking the endless cycle of violence? Or another cycle of this vicious cycle? The odds of roulette being almost 50/50 are tempting enough to take a chance. For the first time, Tell has a goal, for the first time he loses his temper again. This time for good, not hate. But the mind is clouded in any case, and this is fraught with a distortion between the desired and the reality.
To help in the implementation of the plans of the main character is called enterprising La Linda - a representative of major sponsors, lending money to players for interest. Tell's excitement will peak on a spontaneous walk in the park as their contact with LL lights up the entire county with waves of psychedelic illumination. In the final scene, this contact will play with different, more restrained colors - from Michelangelo's fresco "The Creation of Adam" - but so even more spectacularly and in the laconic manner characteristic of the film to express more through less.
The outcome of this game with skillfully intertwined lines will be ambiguous and turn into a stalemate without the right to choose. Reluctance to go this way was Tell's victory for a long time, but the forced change in trajectory was not his defeat. It's a new debt that needs to be paid back because it has to. Impassionate karmic mathematics. Cold crew. Nothing personal.
Cleverly and gradually winning in different casinos with the help of a card count, the main character suddenly meets the ghost of the past in the form of the son of a colleague. A co-worker committed suicide, and the son tries to track down and punish the officer who brought his father to this point. Along the way, it is revealed that all these military brethren participated in the tortures at Guantanamo.
Slowly harnessing and at the end almost never coming film is interesting only to those who lacked the recent ' Moorish', and I want to see from the other side - no longer a prisoner, and the guard, and what is associated with this empathy guard.
At the same time, there is no forgiveness or idealization - dirt is dirt, torture is torture, and hell as it is continues to live not only in those who were tortured, but also in those who were tortured. It’s a pity that this story is revealed very slowly and not deep enough, and the most interesting thing in the film is the tips and techniques of playing against the casino, in the spirit of the financial educational program from '.
Particularly inspired to sing the film praises almost in the spirit of ' it's like ' Taxi Driver' with poker' but half of the film is a poker scene from ' Casino Royal' with a sawn fly, and the second half - ' Jacob's Staircase' told to those to whom the plot was only retold.
6 out of 10
It will go under a conscientious and sensitive mood. Misanthropes and cynics better not even bother - they have not yet laughed off the phrase ' empathy guard'
Bill (Oscar Isaac) is a professional poker player. He prefers anonymous matches, doesn't win too much. He got his skills in prison while serving a ten-year sentence. He had plenty of time to master the art of counting cards. But then the past overtakes him in the face of a completely unfamiliar boy Kirk (Tai Sheridan).
Paul Schroeder is a famous screenwriter. You can see the embodiment of his amazing thoughts in 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull' Scorsese, for example. 'Cold Calculation' is entirely his picture, Schroeder acts both as a director and as a screenwriter.
The film has a very clear structure, this is reflected, including visually. Each character is very clearly written out and has a convincing enough motivation. This is a huge rarity, and the professionalism of Schroeder in our fishless times is needed more than ever.
'Cold Calculation' is a perfectly calculated and elaborate thriller that crumbles with criticism of (suddenly) US policy towards political prisoners and all the rest of Guantanamo. The main characters of the picture somehow suffered from these atrocities in the dungeons.
Poker allows you to show not only the skills of the protagonist, but also his approach to life in general. He is a very reasonable person who tries to do the right and just, even if he has no benefit for himself.
Bill is the protagonist of the level 'Taxi Driver' and 'Cold Settlement' will definitely be one of the contenders for the main award 'Oscar' next year. Incredibly stylish, smart and beautiful in every sense of cinema.
He's just very attentive. He's just being observant.
Watson, people are not observant at all. Here you are, Watson, can you tell us how many stairs we have in the hallway?
- Eight.
- How much?
- Seven.
- Ten. Ten... First creak. On the seventh two years ago, they changed the board. It's nothing. Little thing. But nothing is more important than small things. From any, even the most insignificant detail, a chain of logical reasoning can be drawn. This is the basis of my method of deduction.
'Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson', 1979, dir. I. Maslennikov
You can't argue with a great detective. Mindfulness, observation, alas and ah, are not the prerogative of humanity. Other landmarks cloud and beckon us. Leisure. Not yet. There's no need to waste time. We don't see the obvious. We do not see, we ignore, we do not look. Think about it. Nothing... That's why, apparently, Sherlock Holmes is among us, and once or twice he's gone. And she, by the way, this very attentiveness, multiplied by observation, is able not only to work miracles, but to benefit the one endowed with these qualities. The blue bird of luck is in your hands. Hold her tight. Don't let go. You can't catch him.
'Cold calculation' this is a wire of tired penetrating eyes from the screen into the viewer. In us. All of them. At once. Right away. Are the prison casemates clogging this young man? Looks like it. How old does he look? Gray hair, smoothly combed back, a hint. Forty years? A little more? I guess. Who is he? Schuler? Card player? Catala? Is that the time? Maybe. Anything is possible.
Slow author's run - the path of a confused path under our feet. Yeah, that's the long-awaited freedom. Yeah, he's already at the casino table. Yeah, that's the first 750 greens in cash at the checkout -- so it's a plus, so it's a win. Lucky guy? The methods of a unique creator? No, no, no, no. He's just very attentive. He's just very observant. And this should allow you to live comfortably. To earn a piece of bread, he can always. Not too hard. . .
How was it with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in 'Rain Man'?
Raymond, what happened last week? What were you doing?
- We counted the cards.
- Did you count the cards?
- We counted the cards in Las Vegas.
In 'Cold Calculation' William counts cards perfectly. He plays ' on a small ' - not particularly attracting attention. Without the rudeness of the staff of the gambling establishment. Intrigue to the public is like a worm bait for fish in a pond. What happens? What happens? What happens? Maybe the kidneys will kill the bastard. Why? For money in America, any whim. However, the director only inflames the intrigue, and now there are two new ' Ducks' planting birds to the main character. Who are they? What are they? Are you after him? Why? By whom? The past begins to grow little by little with the roots of new shoots. Past 'counter'. Tragic, the drama of fate completely broken. Here comes the look of the eyes that do not blink. And this twilight fatigue without sparks of joy.
The picture is not at all simple. Double bottomed. Multi-layered pie stuffing. And there is sweetness, and bitterness is present, and much, much more for the inquisitive viewer.
Well, the tricky poker in front of us. Watching this movie is a pleasure.
Reading the description of how the main character William Tell (Oscar Isaac) makes his way in the World Series of Poker, and then confronts his past, can excite the viewer, who will begin to draw vivid pictures in the imagination, supported by “Ocean’s Friends”, the film “Twenty-one”, “Casino Royale”, “Maverick” or any other film that has cards, a poker table and chips for a very round sum.
However, in fact, poker and the World Series here act as a kind of screen or distraction, because in reality “Cold Calculation” is a film about something else.
A bright sign with the inscription “Martin Scorsese presents” also acts as a lure, because the name of Scorsese in the list of producers of the film is only 24 (!) place out of 30. Well, the total number of producers who put a hand in the film may hint that the film is actually very bad (in the spirit of the last paintings of Bruce Willis or Thomas Jane). In addition, in “Cold Calculation”, some producers (Adrien Lau and Joel Michaeli) starred themselves, which is also suggestive.
But the movie isn’t really that bad. It lacks dynamism and action. The story of William Tell is confusing and this is good, but given the fact that the hero himself does not give any information about himself, for a long time we have to try to understand who he is and what is happening to him, why he behaves like this in a room in a motel, the scene with the prison is his past or present?
In addition, the creators deliberately follow the popular path, showing static footage for a long time, which kills with their emptiness. A plan with an empty bed in a prison cell or a final plan with the hands of the two main characters looks very painful, like some others. I understand that nowadays fashion is such, but sometimes directors frankly overdo it with such moments, turning their projects into an iris "Kiss-kiss".
Maybe that was the idea of the picture: to show all the grayness and serenity, the dreary length of each new day for the main character. In order to reflect his whole inner world, which has become ingrained in the sad reality and has become an integral part of it. William Tell is self-contained, but behind the external calm and indifference is stored a lot of things and sometimes, when it comes to a young boy, the main character’s eyes light up. At these moments, he awakens the thirst for life, but only so that his own life would not be in vain and he could do at least something good for one person, while causing suffering to many.
The events of the picture can be described as a “return to your past life”. The meticulously built new life of William Tell with his complete immersion and even isolation in himself, the monolithic foundation of impenetrable gives a crack after a chance encounter that was not exactly part of his plans. A man from the past, which he carefully tried to forget, another meeting with a boy driven by a thirst for revenge, leads to the fact that William Tell has to remember everything that he tried so hard to forget and why he tried to escape for many years.
And therefore the picture turns not into a vivid spectacle about the world of poker, but about what happens inside a person weighed down by a very heavy burden and trying to forget about his past. By the way, going back to the beginning of the film: the fact that the director is preparing an unexpected surprise and is going to talk not at all about what the viewer thinks, it becomes clear not immediately. Because in the first scenes there is an instructive monologue from William Tell, in which he talks about which cards are most valued when playing.
Someone compares this film, as well as the performance of the main role by Isaac with “Taxi Driver” Scorsese, however, for myself I found a comparison of William Tell with the hero Joaquin Phoenix from the film “You were never here.”
But look at you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
America is evil, and the world that this civilization has built is collapsing at the feet that built it. Paul Schroeder (writer of Taxi Driver), a poet of marginalized and sociopathic heroes, shot his new film, where Oscar Isaac reveals the sins endlessly pulsating in the head of a prison guard. What accents did the famous writer and director put in his new film?
William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is a silent card player, his favorite business is blackjack and poker, he is not interested in anything else. Schroeder does not intrigue the origin of the hero, talking about his prison past at the beginning of the film. The authors associate the story with real trials. Tell was a warden at Abu Grave, and, unlike his superiors, served time for his own toughness.
After some time, life confronts the main character with the son of a co-worker who shot himself, Kirk (Tai Sheridan). He dreams of revenge on Tell’s boss, Gordo (Willem Defoe), and asks for William’s help. The gambler is not enthusiastic about the idea of another murder, so he offers the guy to go on tour with him to give him money to pay off debts. Attempting to atone for your sins is the main theme of the Cold Calculation.
Schroeder explores the nature of a survivor. He chooses the unusual side of the rapist. Maps is the hero's motivation to kill time, having learned this in prison now he extrapolates his hatred of life on the outside through this process. In any case, his home is a prison.
The film does not amaze the imagination either visually, music, or editing. Schroeder bets on history, and this party definitely succeeds him. Discussing the new outfit of the American marginal, he gives him one eternal weakness - the ability to love. Only she is able to save the hero personifying the whole country lost in the vicious circle of violence.
Primitive self-hatred. Review of the film “Cold Calculation”
It’s funny to watch the scriptwriter of the cult Taxi Driver Paul Schroeder sell the viewer the same story about people who are excluded from society, changing only one variable – the professional activity of the main character. Schroeder’s characters can be anything from the already mentioned taxi driver in the film Martin Scorsese, to a pastor in the ecological First Reformed Church (called the “Shepherd’s Diary” in the Russian box office), or a professional poker player, as in the case of the protagonist Oscar Isaac from Cold Calculation. All of these people have one thing in common – a feeling of guilt. Schröder’s heroes are unable to forgive themselves for past crimes or mistakes, so they try to find solace in their work. And post-traumatic syndrome becomes for them a kind of Achilles heel, leading eventually, if not to physical death, then, at least, to personal death.
Cold Calculation tells the story of former Special Forces soldier William Tell (Oscar Isaac), tormented by conscience for his war crimes in Iraq. After serving 10 years in prison on the verdict of a military tribunal, William becomes a professional poker player. And while his opponents around the table play for profit, William tries to escape from the real world, spending all his free time in casinos around the country. He is not interested in money, cards help him cope with loneliness and suicidal thoughts. But everything changes one day, when he meets a mischievous young man named Kirk (Tay Sheridan), giving William a chance to commit revenge by killing former Major John Gordo (William Defoe), on whose orders the main character and tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Ideologically, "Cold Calculation" is very similar to "Taxi Driver", with the only difference that the story of Travis Bickle was about the American rot of the sample of the 70s of the last century, but William Tell - about the dirt of the 00s. Schroeder, an outspoken leftist, portrays the U.S. military as an absolute evil on Earth whose soldiers are more like cockroaches crawling on walls than people in the service trying to restore pride and hope to an entire nation affected by the events of September 11. William, like Travis, returns home broken, tainted, disfigured and repressed by guilt, a beast trying to cope with the inner demons rushing out. However, as in the case of a taxi driver, Schroeder makes the poker player an antihero, putting the character not only in a favorable light. After all, whoever gave William orders to torture living people – no one ordered him to enjoy the process.
William Tell, played by Oscar Isaac, is the trump king of the Schroeder tape, who apparently has a special talent in working with actors. If Ethan Hawke in the “First Reformed Church” performed not only the best role in his career, but also showed one of the most powerful acting works for the whole of 2017, then Oscar Isaac, if not up to the title of one of the best for 2021, is at least a worthy heir to his predecessor. Isaac faced a very difficult task: to show a hero who almost never shows true emotions. Hive always wears a mask. The viewer sees William real in rare personal scenes, in which Isaac and breaks off to the fullest, throwing on the table his entire arsenal. William Isaac evokes very contradictory emotions, because he is both a bastard and an unhappy victim of the system. This character and catches first of all – his illogical, often based purely on emotions actions and hold the viewer’s attention.
And although it was not visible from the promotional materials, as it turned out, Schroeder boasts one of the most interesting visuals of the year. The camera work of Alexander Dainan is exemplary. The camera very subtly feels the essence of the central conflict, showing shimmering and colorful casinos monotonous, flat and as if dead, but not because the operator does not know how to show volume, but because this is how the main character perceives his environment. William's world is dark, cold and repulsive. The color palette creates a feeling of powerlessness, while avoiding the banal reception with the removal of the saturation of colors into the minus. The main color fragments of Calculation are a green poker table, gray prison concrete and scorched yellow Iraqi prison, which the operator filmed on something between a fish eye and a 360-degree camera, thereby creating a visual image of the purgatory in which the main character lives even after returning home.
Cold Calculation is a painful, emotional and psychologically very difficult movie. And although unlike the “First Reformed” it is impossible to say with absolute certainty that “Calculation” is an art house, yet its primitive art-house nature makes itself felt during viewing. Paul Schroeder is not a mass director, although he is concerned about global problems related to American culture, ecology and politics, but he chooses a very difficult form of presentation in his author’s scripts. For some, “Cold Calculation” is a string of delirium, wooden characters and illogical actions, for others – a layered, not stupid and very personal confession on the topic of guilt. And the funny thing about the whole story is not even that Schroeder once again sold a story already familiar to everyone, but that he already once again manages to open a discussion.
Isn’t that the most important thing in political cinema?
8 out of 10
Participant of the last Venice Film Festival, the film “Cold Calculation” is doomed to attract attention with star names. The director and writer of the script here is the screenwriter of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” Paul Schroeder. Among the producers of the tape is listed Martin Scorsese. The main role was played by one of the most popular actors of Hollywood today Oscar Isaac. And he was joined by the brilliant Willem Defoe and the rising star of overseas cinema Tai Sheridan.
Interest in the picture, of course, warmed up and recently released “Dune”, where the same Isaac played a major role. But Schroeder’s film is a film of a completely different format, which will never rival the popularity of big-budget blockbusters. In fact, the author does not seek this. After all, the hope here is not to captivate the viewer with a visual feast or an unusual plot, but to once again, as it was more than once with Schroeder, plunge headlong into human psychology and show the world another broken soul.
The plot of the film clearly echoes the previous works of the author. Someone has already called him "Taxi Driver" of our time. And the Iraqi past of the protagonist involuntarily evokes associations with Schroeder’s previous film “The Shepherd’s Diary”. In it, by the way, Isaac could also play, but Ethan Hawke, according to the director, was better suited to the role of a priest.
The new film tells the story of a former U.S. military man convicted of brutal crimes he committed against inmates in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. After serving his sentence, he becomes a professional card player. Most of the time, the hero spends at the card table, traveling from one casino to another, seeking to distract from terrible memories. Until one day a chance meeting will not give him a chance to at least lighten the burden of guilt for his atrocities, and maybe even try to part with the ghosts of the past forever.
If you give the most exhaustive definition of both the film of Schroeder and the main character, the word “varice” involuntarily comes to mind. The plot of the picture is extremely stingy on events and emotions. And Oscar Isaac, it seems, throughout the film, except for rare episodes, does not change the expression of his face at all. If not for the other characters of the film, then the viewer himself, following the hero of Isaac, could easily fall into depression. However, thanks to secondary characters, as well as a few, but spectacular flashbacks that affect the psyche, interest in what is happening on the screen can be maintained.
The scenes of the hero’s brutal military past, although significantly superior in emotional intensity to the footage of his current life, still do not go beyond something shocking. It is obvious that Schroeder sought to show not so much the violence of one person over others, as its consequences – internal devastation, psychological breakdown of the personality. Therefore, this picture is primarily a heavy psychological and social drama, but nothing more. Pointing among the genres of the film to “thriller”, and especially “fighter”, caused me a slight bewilderment.
In addition to the dramatic portrait of a man who is pressed by a sense of responsibility for terrible crimes, this film is also quite traditional for Schroeder unsightly portrait of America. A country that many once saw as a coveted dream, “heaven on earth”, and which gives less and less reason to be proud of itself and its history. And some of its citizens, who have given the “debt to the homeland”, are forced to experience a truly hellish torment. No one seems to be able to help them atone for their sins.
The film causes mixed impressions. On the one hand, this is a qualitatively made tape, which is difficult to find fault with in terms of the skill of the director, screenwriter, operator. Event and emotional minimalism, in this case, is not a weakness of the film, but the intention of the author, who created the picture for a certain audience, loving and able to reflect on what they saw, analyze the ideas inherent in the picture.
On the other hand, there are practically no interesting, fresh ideas, as well as intriguing characters, memorable dialogues and actions. At the same time, the unpleasant past of the main character, his external dispassionateness, the general routine of the narrative and the not the brightest ending can disappoint many viewers. True empathy for any of the characters of the picture cannot be experienced. And just to watch on the screen the life and mental anguish of a repentant military sadist, as well as the successive faces of players at the card table - a pleasure not for everyone.
6.5 out of 10