Croupier **** (1998, Clive Owen, Alex Kingston) – Classic Movie Review 1327

Director Mike Hodges’s neglected but masterly 1998 thriller stars Clive Owen, who is superb as Jack Manfred, a struggling book writer who reluctantly takes a job as a casino croupier to make ends meet on the urging of his hustler father.

But Jack is soon consumed by the casino world. He goes drinking with Matt (Paul Reynolds), a croupier he knows is cheating the casino, and against casino rules he sleeps with another croupier named Bella (Kate Hardie). His relationship with his girlfriend Marion (Gina McKee) deteriorates after he lets her read his book about a cold-hearted croupier who enjoys seeing gamblers lose. Jack then gets embroiled in a risky plot to rob his employer thanks to a mysterious woman, Jani (Alex Kingston), one of the gamblers.

Thanks to Paul Myersberg’s intelligent and gripping screenplay and Hodges’s sleek and stylish direction, this is a thrilling, thoughtful, tip-top film noir-style crime drama, with a great seedy atmosphere, a doomy mood and mounting tension throughout. Using interior monologues in the style of classic film noir detective movies, it sets out to be a neo-noir.

It was more or less chucked away by Film Four, but given a second chance when it was released to great acclaim under the aegis of the British Film Institute, and then after it was a hit in the US, it was re-released in the UK by Channel Four. In the US, it attracted a steady audience at the box office and was popular on TV, gaining a strong critical following and helping to launch Owen as a star in America.

Mike Hodges is the director of the original Get Carter.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1327

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