The Card Counter (2021)

Written by ummagumma on December 4, 2021

A confused mess... Spoilers towards the end are flagged.

The main storyline is only driven by a strange decision by an older man to invite an obviously mentally unstable 20 something year old man on an all expenses paid road trip across America... For reasons, the mentally unstable man then decides, as any guy in his early 20's when propositioned to be escorted across country in a car by a virtual stranger as a Piaf companion, he says yes... The whole movie is spent guessing at the relationships, one minute the mentally unstable kid is "an insolent little prick" the next he's "a good kid that needs help". You see the love interest saddened by the fact the main character regards her, essentially a stranger, as a friend but then just goes with it for reasons. This whole movie is driven by weird decision after weird decision, like the inclusion of card playing, despite the name it is nothing more than a plot moving device to explain why this weird decision has a slightly different background to the previous weird decision.

All in all I feel the writer tried to do too much and as a result produced very little but confusion Spoilers below .... Spoilers below

In the end I felt like the main protagonist just deciding to take turns with the antagonist torturing each other just for reasons... Ok movie... Now it's my turn.