Critic Reviews

Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien have given some crackerjack card-shark dialogue to two hot young actors—Matt Damon and Edward Norton—and together with John Dahl's atmospheric direction they've all made a dream of a poker movie.

Mischievously entertaining...Dahl's film has character in oversupply even if its actual characters are sometimes thin. Poker fever makes up for whatever the story lacks in everyday emotions.

Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses.

This isn't a movie where story matters that much: It's a movie of character and milieu, both of which it evokes brilliantly.

Damon is a magical actor. His mind, as sharp and focused as a laser, beams out of the face of a vivacious choirboy, and, in nearly every scene, he invites you to share the jet-propelled pleasure of his precocious agility.

For a grimmer and more realistic look at this world, no modern movie has surpassed Karel Reisz's "The Gambler'' (1974), starring James Caan in a screenplay by self-described degenerate gambler James Toback.

In spite of how hard everything is to believe, you believe what Damon is doing.

Although the storyline is predictable, the intelligent dialogue and top-drawer acting more than make up for the possible deficiency.

Most novel is Rounders' message that the real sin isn't giving into vice but denying your God-given talents and not risking it all.

Because I'm a sucker--I was entertained...The script is good at making you think that it has better cards than it really does. And the actors constitute a royal flush--OK, OK, enough with the poker metaphors.