The Card Counter review: Crime and punishment in Paul Schrader’s latest film
The Card Counter can present as almost cold or perfunctory but it’s asking deep questions about the nature of punishment.
There’s a monotony and trancelike feel to The Card Counter, filmmaker Paul Schrader’s latest work.
The Card Counter weaves its way in and out of indistinguishable casino floors, banks of poker machines lined up like groves of trees, leading into rooms with rows of identical poker tables.
The patterned carpet hides years of spilt drinks and the windowless caverns means there’s nothing to indicate what time of the day it is. For William Tell (Oscar Isaac), his days in these institutions rarely vary.
That’s how he prefers it, as he goes about winning at blackjack and poker tables, counting cards. Be disciplined, keep it small and you don’t gain notice.
Tell learnt to count cards during his eight-year stint in a military prison, and that adherence to routine comes from both the tedium of incarceration and also his need for redemption.
In an early scene, as he’s wrapping all the furniture and decor of his interchangeable motel room, his voiceover narration asks, “Is there an end to punishment? Is it possible to know when one reaches the limit?”
That’s the crux of Schrader’s film, this idea that Tell, having served his time, is forever still punishing himself, unable to reintegrate because maybe – in his mind – he doesn’t deserve to.
In quick succession, two things happen to him. An associate, La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), approaches him with an offer to stake him through her stable of investors. And Tell meets a young man named Cirk (Tye Sheridan), who knows who Tell really is.
Tell was an officer at Abu Ghraib, and was pictured in the images which exposed horrific abuse and torture of prisoners – it’s why he was prison and it’s why he’s atoning.
Cirk says how his now-dead father was in the same situation, and the young man wants revenge against Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe), the “civilian contractor” who trained the officers in “enhanced interrogation” but escaped punishment and is now making a killing on the lecture circuit.
Despite his philosophy that he can never wipe the moral stains from his life, Tell decides to help Cirk – not to kill Gordo, but to help him get his life, a life still rife with promise, back on track.
The Card Counter can present as almost perfunctory or distant with its soporific rhythms, with its lulling synth score from composer the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Levon Been, but it’s contemplating deep questions about crime and punishment, about the sins of the country and the sins of the individual.
On the same poker circuit, Tell frequently encounters a player who has adopted the nationalistic persona of Mr USA, complete with flag waving and jingoistic chanting.
The character is presented as a ludicrous fool to mock, the manifestation of the worst of patriotism – the unthinking nativist who wilfully ignores the violations of the past (and present).
Tell doesn’t ignore what’s come before, he is forever wrestling with responsibility and consequence, a conversation Schrader has been having through his work, most notably before in First Reformed.
The Card Counter challenges you to think about the same things.
Rating: 3.5/5
The Card Counter is in cinemas now
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