The Gambler (1974) Reviews

• Classic 70s film about addiction

  shotguntom2002-04-17

  The theme of addiction is a favourite area for film makers and "The Gambler" stands as the best and most intelligent film about the addiction of gambling. The fact that it is a little known or seen film is perhaps to do with its intellectual script which, with references to Dostoyevsky, may be too pretentious for some. However, rather than being a cleched film about a good man's decent into the hell of addiction this is a film about a selfish, egotistical man, from a good background, who happily wades deeper and deeper into his obsession. The film's title pretty much sums up the story, with the character of Axel Freed, played by James Caan, beginning the film as a compulsive gambler but sinking further and further into his habit as the film goes on. He does this despite his undoubted intelligence - he is a college lecturer - and despite the pleading of his mother, rich grandfather and friends. Freed is by no means a likeable character. Like most addicts all he cares about is his next fix and will happily ask his mother for tens of thousands of dollars to repay an outstanding debt. No one, including his girlfriend, played by Lauren Hutton, and his college students, remain untouched by his addiction, a decision which comes back to haunt him in the film's climax. Many people have been left puzzled by the film's ending which is cryptic and unresolved. However this merely stands as a metaphor for addiction generally, that it can never be fully cured or ever totally go away. Axel is, however, obviously disgusted with himself and the effect his gambling has had on those around him and his late night journey into the all-black neighbourhood is his way of seeking retribution for his sins. "The Gambler" provides James Caan with, alongside Michael Mann's "Thief", the best role of his career. The character of Axel Freed provides him with a range of emotions, especially in the way he treats those he cares about, as his gambling slowly takes precedence over everything else. Anyone who thinks James Caan's career began and ended with "The Godfather" should definitely see "The Gambler", as this proves he is one of the top actors of his generation and that he can play more than just the tough guy roles he is too often saddled with. The film is brilliantly directed by Karel Reisz as not a single scene rings false despite a 111 minute running time. After directing the classic "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" in Britain, Reisz relocated to America, but, unfortunately, "The Gambler" represents the only time he reached those heights again.

  More

• A bit disturbing

  kayrok2003-06-19

  From the first scene to the last I was on the edge of my seat. Bet after bet my stomach turned. Caan's Axel Freed is driven to hit the big one, but it never seems to come or be enough. He loves the thrill of losing and feels safe when he is at the bottom. Watching Freed bet tens of thousands of dollars on whims is excruciating. This film is one huge car wreck that you can't turn away from. With each scene the damage gets worse and worse. "If all my bets were safe they just wouldn't have any juice," he tells his bookie. Axel is never happy--even when he is doing the thing he enjoys most. You can see the underlying dissatisfaction he has with his job, his life, and the universe in general. The only constant in his existence is the bet. Win or lose. Freed is very adept at evading the lowlifes he owes his shirt to. It is a joyride for him to constantly "dodge the bullet". That is why each bet becomes riskier and riskier. He wants to see what will happen to him when all of his luck runs out. At one point in the film Axel reads a passage from an essay on George Washington to his class. He and his students conclude that Washington was afraid of failure and that he tried to remove the element of risk from everything he did. It is the very antithesis of Axel's life as a gambler. He creates situations that are totally immersed in risk believing that it is the only way to ensure true success. All or nothing. He is willing to compromise not only himself, but anyone around him who cares about him. By displaying his dark, self-destructive side he gambles with their feelings and challenges them to either love him or leave him. It was a special treat to see two actors (Cann and Sorvino) who are in two of the best crime movies ever made (The Godfather and Goodfellas) together in the same film. Also Antonio Vargas is appropriately slimy as the Pimp (sort of an R-rated Huggy Bear). There are some pivotal moments in the film like when Axel is told that he must get one of his basketball-playing students to fix a game; or when he confronts his millionaire grandfather after learning that he refused to cover his debt. I won't give away the ending, but the payoff is not what you would expect in American cinema.

  More

• There are no happy endings in This world.

  davisk9572008-12-20

  Those viewers who wished a happy ending (and that's what they're really saying when they find the movie's ending scene weak/disquieting/unfulfilling/whatever) don't really understand the nature of degenerate gambling. And that's what this man is. Let's (as all gamblers do) put some %'s to it: arbitrarily I'll say 95% of habitual bettors play for the kick, the high, the thrill of the unknown outcome -- sports betting, casino betting, the turn of a card, they're all the same. Their motto of life might be, "If it moves, bet on it; if it doesn't, eat it." It isn't the win that's satisfying to them, or the money won -- because, you see, there's always the next game to get down on. Both a win or a loss is quickly forgotten, adjusted to, and forgotten. The next play is the only important one. Yet, to some extent or another, they keep it manageable, within the scope of their lives. Then there are the other 5% -- the really degenerate gamblers. Now to these guys (never heard of a female degenerate gambler, did you?) it's NOT the action they crave. It's the LOSS. Make sense? Of course not, because you're probably reading this as a rational human being, and self-destruction is hard to get inside of. But that's what this story is all about -- one of the 5%'ers. To an experienced sports bettor, the scenes like the indelibly memorable tub scene are all too powerfully true. How a win turns to a loss in the last second happens all too often. And how COULD those 3 college hoops games all go south, when they all had big leads at the half?? But examine two key turning points in the story: for dramatic impact, the writer imbues the protagonist with somewhat unlikely powers of recovery -- the Vegas comeback is the stuff of dreams, and the fix on the NYU game, keeping it under 7 points when all was lost with a minute to go -- those contrivances were needed to show the magnitude of this guy's disease. Had he been just a steady loser, he couldn't rise to the heights necessary to fall so far. Not once, but twice, he made a full recovery from the debts he owed. Yet he couldn't learn from it -- hell, he couldn't even take one night to sleep in peace. No, his desire for self-destruction had to be played out as it was, in a lurid hell far worse than casinos or calling the book again. He needed the self-degradation that only a Harlem pimp-fight could give him. I found the ending fitting, un-sentimentalized, and perfect for this unblinking portrait of a man who couldn't be satisfied until he'd thoroughly debased himself. Substitute a down-and-out drunk for the gambling addiction, and the story's been told many times. This should be assigned viewing in every GA meeting.

  More

• Cult film classic inspired by "Notes from Underground"

  EThompsonUMD2009-01-31

  "The Gambler" (1974) is a riveting drama about a man who - like many young adults in the baby boom generation - rejects the world of privilege and comfort he has been born into. Rather than turning to some form of counter-culture politics, however, Alex Freed (James Caan) holds an establishment job as a professor of English while pursuing "the juice" of financial, social, and even physical risk and pain during his considerable free time. Like Dostoyevski's Underground Man, to whom the screenplay pays homage in an early scene of Freed lecturing to his students at NYC (i. e. CCNY), "the gambler" rejects the middle class world of reason and social convention and instead embraces the irrational, the realm of will and desire where two plus two can equal five and where poets, athletes, and addicts can "know" and experience things that ordinary human beings living in the rut of mundane existence cannot. Unfortunately for Freed he will never be a poet although, as a literature professor, he can quote Shakespeare, e.e. cummings, and Walt Whitman with anyone. He can also turn an original phrase or two and lead his relatives, friends, and other less literary folk to believe that he has great books in him. But the truth is that he's a third rate talent stuck in a $1500 a month gig trying to wheedle literary appreciation out of reluctant undergrads who are obviously going through the motions to get paper qualified for one pragmatic goal or another. He is also not a great athlete although he kids himself about how he might have been a star basketball player - even, at one point, stopping at a playground in Harlem to take on a local 15 year old hot shot in a game of one-on-one, betting $20 to a dime that he will win. He gives the hot shot a pretty good game, but loses, thus establishing the real extent of his athletic talent for us - and perhaps himself - to see. No, the only sure and easy way he can get the juice is through gambling and the self deceptions about winning and losing that his compulsive behavior entails. Considering the barrage of searing insults that Harvard-educated Axel Freed hurls at the Brown University (my alma mater) football team, I would like to say very bad things about this film, but I'd be lying. Written by heralded screenwriter James Toback ("Fingers," "Bugsy," etc.) and featuring one of James Caan's finest performances, "The Gambler" has deservedly become a 1970s cult classic.

  More

• Worth the Gamble

  joel cohen2005-09-06

  I saw this movie back in 1974/75 when it was released. I was already a Caan man. My comments are just random tidbits. Burt Young would go on to join Caan in 1975's The Killer Elite". Monkey (London Lee) was a stand-up comic who appeared numerous times on the Ed Sullivan show in the 60's. Lauren Hutton would trade Caan for Burt Reynolds in Gator. Caan earlier had beat out Burt for the role of Sonny Corleone. The line I remember most from this film is when Axel's mother is trying to get a bank loan to fund his gambling debt. There are some bureaucratic snafus and the bank officer isn't sure he has the proof to approve the loan to mom. Caan says "I came out of her womb and I know she's my mom. Now give her the god... money!".

  More