A pointless movie of a NYC college professor addicted to gambling and making huge risky bets. Driving the plot is Axel Freed (Caan)’s need to come up with $44,000 or face the wrath of the Mobsters. We follow him as makes even more crazy bets, sponges off his well-to-do Mother, and tries to appease and buy time from Loan sharks/Bookmakers. We also get some dull scenes with Axel teaching college students and we get the standard boyfriend-girlfriend scenes with Hutton.
This is NOT a nail-biting, “OMG how is Alex going to pay off the money and not get killed” thriller. It’s more of a leisurely character study of a self-destructive gambler. Even worse there’s really only one character: Axel Freed. And there's almost no humor or charm and very little entertainment. The Gambling scenes fail to transmit the thrill and excitement gamblers must experience.
The movie expects us to identify with Mr. Freed, be intrigued by him, and root for him. But that’s just a given - there's nothing put on the screen that makes us care. He makes no effort to cure his gambling habit, he's gotten in trouble before and gotten bailed out by his rich relatives, and outside of his gambling habit there's nothing particularly interesting about him. By the end, I was tired of him. So, when Axel absurdly goes to Harlem and tries to bait a pimp into killing him, one wishes it were so. But sadly, he only manages to get his face slashed.
And Caan doesn’t help matters. He just doesn’t have the charisma/acting chops to draw us in. Caan’s too self-contained, its all surface emotion. We feel neither Axel’s ghastly compulsion nor his intermittent exultation. And Caan doesn’t wear well - he can’t “carry” a movie for 120 minutes.
Summary: Watching a young Paul Sorvino, and a few scenes of 1970s NYC was fun. And Hutton was attractive - but mostly I was bored with “The Gambler”. We get too many scenes of Caan driving a car, talking to college students, or talking to his mother. Or Axel telling some bookie “I’ll get your money, just wait”. Again, the whole thing seemed pointless. A small time movie about a small-time man you really wouldn't want to know. Who was the target audience for this? I dunno. It sure wasn't me.
The Mystery of James Caan
James Caan always seems to be a bigger star then he actually was. Partly, it was luck. He got co-star/supporting roles in memorable movies (Misery, Dick Tracy, Brian’s Song, and The Godfather) or was paired with a popular actress in one of thieir star vehicles (Funny Lady, Comes a Horseman). And partly it was because he was the darling of Studio Execs/Producers and Pauline Kael in the 1970s. Robert Evans, for example, wanted Caan as “Michael” in the Godfather. And the director of “The Gambler” chose Caan over DeNiro for that role.
It’s not clear how popular Caan really was, because most of his starring movies in 70s weren’t very good and did mediocre business. After watching Thief and The Gambler, it’s clear he couldn’t carry a movie on his own. He just wasn’t in the same class as De Niro, Pacino, or Redford.
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