Matt Damon lit up theater screens this summer with The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s spectacular retelling of the Greek epic poem that saw him fighting giants, facing off with witches, and taking part in vast battles. If you go back to the beginning of his career, however, the actor made his name on a much smaller canvas.
Now available to stream for free on Pluto, Rounders is a 1998 thriller set in the world of underground poker that is a million miles away from the Trojan War, but offers its own unique brand of excitement. Released just a year after Damon’s breakthrough with Good Will Hunting, co-stars Edward Norton and John Malkovich help portray a world where wits will always triumph over muscle.
‘Rounders’ Sees Matt Damon Play a Card Shark in Troubled Waters
‘Rounders’ refers to people who travel between cities looking for high-stakes poker games, and focuses on one “rounder,” Mike McDermott (Damon). He’s a young New York City law student whose aptitude with his studies is outmatched only by his talent for playing poker. Chasing higher winnings at each table, his confidence is rocked when he loses his entire bankroll to Teddy “KGB” (Malkovich), which prompts him to promise to his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) that he will give up gambling and focus on his degree. However, when his childhood friend Worm (Norton) is released from prison and runs into some serious debts, Mike must go back to the table to save both of them, a path that leads him back to his old nemesis.
A moderate box office hit at the time, the film’s reputation took off in the early 2000s thanks to the rise in popularity of poker and interest in the game’s strategies. There have been many stories based around the gaming table since then, but few capture the unfiltered thrill of those who need to know when to hold ‘em or fold ‘em.
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For a generation, cinema audiences have been used to conflict coming from alien invasions, Earth-ending weapons, or zombie apocalypses. Rounders echoes a time when the entire fate of the story relied instead on the protagonist’s next decision. The psychological stakes are what makes the film so compelling, as we see whether Mike can stay away from the thrill of the chase, avoid retribution from criminals, and save his relationship. They’re small, individual stakes in the grand scheme of things, but handled with deft storytelling by director John Dahl, who takes the skeleton of a sports movie and applies it to the world of gambling. We are following a personal journey of skill and redemption, with opponents who make the sedentary nature of the game more exciting.
This is coupled with performances that make those face-offs matter. Damon and Norton are volatile but bonded friends who are polar opposites but somehow inseparable. Mike is a decent man with a talent and competitive edge that pulls him into trouble. Worm is, in essence, the personification of those demons – charming, manipulative, and uncontrollable, he represents all the shadows Mike is trying to evade. It is a movie about psychology, weakness, and personalities. One of those personalities, however, stands out from the rest…
John Malkovich’s Performance is Like Nothing Else You’ve Seen Before.
Amid the double bluffs and all-in calls is the film’s secret weapon – antagonist Teddy “KGB,” played unforgettably by John Malkovich. Sporting a red sports jacket over a garish button-down shirt, there is not a drop of subtlety in the performance. His Russian accent is a continuing point of discussion, with exaggerated pronunciation and erratic volume (he would later describe it in an interview with GQ as “a decision to, as they say, ‘go big or go home’”). In a film where keeping your cool is a tool of the trade, he lashes out in fits of temper, goads his opponents, and makes himself as big as possible.
He is the antithesis of what you would expect from a movie set at a poker table, and yet that is precisely what makes his performance work. He exists as a supervillain in Mike’s world, grandstanding to the point where finding a “tell” would be pointless, because every emotion is so close to the surface. He is the perfect foil for our calculated hero, providing most of the movie’s landmark moments in a role that stands as an outlier in his career of quiet, intense characters.
Rounders may never have the broad popularity of Bourne, Oceans 11, or Damon’s latest hit, The Odyssey. However, it is a wildly entertaining early role in his career which finds him somewhere in between his dramatic and action-based roles. For devotees of the actor’s on-screen charisma and quiet presence, it’s a movie you’ll definitely want to gamble on.
