Movies

OLD HENRY: too late for redemption

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Photo caption: Tim Blake Nelson in OLD HENRY. Courtesy of Shout! Factory.

The fine western Old Henry is centered on Henry (Tim Blake Nelson), a widowed settler in the wilds of 1906 Oklahoma.  Henry is content with being a solitary sod buster, but he has serious skills from a violent past, and both the past and the skills are unknown to his teen son (Gavin Lewis).  The son is brash and impulsive, and desperate to escape the drudgery and isolation of the homestead.

A man badly wounded by a gunshot (Scott Haze) turns up with a satchel full of cash ( (obviously contraband).  Henry nurses him, and chooses to hide him when three armed men show up, led by Ketchum ( Stephen Dorff), who claims to be a sheriff.  Ketchum knows that his target is in Henry’s cabin, and he recognizes that Henry is more than a dirt farmer.  When Ketchum returns with reinforcements, a climactic gun battle is inevitable.

One wild card is the wounded man, with his uncertain identity and motives.  Another is the son, rigorously sheltered by Henry and ignorant of the cost of real violence.  He’s spoiling to get into a fight  – and that is not helpful.

Tim Blake Nelson, with nary a wasted word or action, commands the screen as the ever steely Henry. I saw Old Henry in personat the Nashville Film Festival,  where Nelson revealed that his performance was informed by “restraint and stillness” because, for Henry, “any exposure means vulnerability”.  So, Blake made Henry “laconic in actions as well as words”.  

Nelson is a magnificent actor, who has elevated many a character role (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?).  Here he gets the lead role in a movie that premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Good for him.

Old Henry is the the first feature written and directed by Potsy Ponciroli. And it’s a well-crafted film.  The filmmakers get the period right.  The art direction and the production design are flawless, and the weapons have the necessary heft.  Old Henry was filmed on a cattle farm in Tennessee, but it sure looks like Oklahoma. 

If you appreciate a good western, then Old Henry is your movie.  The big shootout is thrilling, and Tim Blake Nelson is so good as a man who knows he can’t have redemption and only seeks some solace. Old Henry is now playing nationally, including for one-week run at San Francisco’s Roxie.

TITANE: demented, excessive and icky

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Photo caption: Agathe Rousselle and Caddy in TITANE. Courtesy of NEON.

I don’t think I’ve ever before described a movie-going experience as “punishing”, but here goes.  After being assaulted by the French sci fi horror film Titane, which purports to be two portraits of abnormal psychology, I felt beaten, even tortured.

The headstrong child Alexia causes an auto accident and gets a platinum plate in her skull.  She grows into a stripper at car shows (Agathe Rousselle), and has a serious automobile fetish.  In Titane’s most notorious scene, Alexia gives a new meaning to auto-eroticism by having sex with, and becoming impregnated by, a Cadillac.  

Alexia is also a serial killer, and her second signature fetish is impaling her victims.  She keeps a spike in her hair for this purpose, but a bar stool will suffice, too. One victim gets away and indemnified her, so Alexia changed her appearance and goes underground as a young man. Here, she happens on a beefy fire captain (Vincent Lindon), who is grieving for a son who disappeared ten years ago, and adopts Alexia as his long lost, now recovered, son.

Through much of Titane, we are asking WTF is going on? Writer-diretor Julia Ducournau keeps surprising us by piling on segments that are SO twisted and bizarre, that most of us could not imagine them.

Most of Titane is intentionally unpleasant to watch.  Characters bleed blood, unless they bleed motor oil.  Bones crunch, mouths froth and bellies are picked open. The murders are gory, and Alexia self mutilates as her pregnancy progresses, right up to an excruciating birth scene.

Oh, and let me be very clear about this, Titane is NOT a date movie.

The character of Alexia is just a bad seed, a feral maniac. The character of the troubled fire captain is also bizarre, but he’s more psychologically interesting.  He insists that everyone else accept what is clearly a delusion.  Does he understand that this is not his son?

Vincent Lindon in TITANE. Courtesy of NEON.

Lindon (who muscled up for the role) is superb in this crazy role, which requires him to exude command authority and also the deepest vulnerability. It’s a very brave performance, and it works, for example, in his solo dance to She’s Not There. 

Myriem Akheddiou is also excellent in a brief scene as the mother of the fire captain’s missing child.

I know my share of American firefighters.  They would be surprised by Titane’s French firefighters, who let off steam by getting high and holding raves in the firehouse, all hypnotically dancing to electronica.

Notably, Titane won the Palme d’Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. While one of the two most prestigious prizes in cinema (along with the Best Picture Oscar), the Palme d’Or is no guarantee that a movie is great – or even watchable. On the positive side, recent winners have included the superb Parasite, Shoplifters, Amour, Blue Is the Warmest Color and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. On the unfathomably bad side, cinematic excrement like The White Ribbon, The Tree of Life, Dancer in the Dark, and now Titane – has also won.

The critical consensus is far too kind to Titane.  Many critics correctly label what had come out of  Julia Ducournau’s mind as “demented” and then credit her for the visual excess in telling an unbearably icky story.  It’s just demented, excessive and icky.

THE NOWHERE INN: watch a St. Vincent performance instead

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Photo caption: Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein in THE NOWHERE INN. Courtesy of IFC Films.

The Nowhere Inn is a comedy about the making of a fictional showbiz documentary.   Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia) plays herself directing a documentary about her real life friend, the avant-garde musician Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent.  (Bill Benz is the actual director of The Nowhere Inn.)

Now here’s the best part of The Nowhere Inn.  We see snippets of St. Vincent’s dazzling performances.  And, even when off stage, the camera loves Annie Clark and her magnetism

In The Nowhere Inn, Annie Clark sees herself, when not “on” as St. Vincent,  as an introvert who gets pleasure from mundane pursuits like eating radishes. That creates tension with Brownstein, who needs more interesting back stage content for the doc.  The two get increasingly annoyed with each other until Brownstein ambushes Clark with a situation that is too emotionally raw. 

This is witty and all mildly amusing. And then The Nowhere Inn gets sillier, as Clark and a famous sexpot actress show up in black lingerie (the actress deadpans “Annie turned me gay”) and force Brownstein to film their amorous play.  Then there’s a Texas segment which looks like a late night comedy sketch shoehorned in – which it is.

These are two smart and talented women, and the movie is maybe half as funny as they are.  If you need a dose of St. Vincent’s sexy vibrancy, then watch her perform instead.

Under the radar at the Nashville Film Festival

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POSER. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

The Nashville Film Festival, opening today, has its share of high-profile movies (notably Spencer), but don’t miss the gems that are screening under the radar. Here are my picks, including the festival’s Must See film, Poser. These movies are why we go to film festivals.

POSER. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

Poser: This deeply psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists is the Must See at this year’s Nashville Film Festival. Lennon (Sylvie Mix) reveres the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North (which she compares to Renaissance Florence). Her entrée is a podcast, which allows her to meet a panoply of local artists, including Bobbi Kitten, the charismatic front woman of the real life band Damn the Witch Siren. At first, we chuckle and cringe at Lennon, until it becomes apparent that a much darker personal plagiarism is afoot and Poser evolves into a thriller. A shot of the recording of a train’s sounds is indelibly chilling. Be prepared to be creeped out by Mix’s performance and to be dazzled by Bobbi Kitten. Poser is the first narrative feature for directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon (Dixon wrote the screenplay), Mix, Kitten and damn near the entire cast and crew, and it’s packed with original music. Must See.

THE TALE OF KING CRAB. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

The Tale of King Crab, a story-telling masterpiece from Italy, begins with old Italian guys rehashing a legend, correcting each other on the details. That story concerns Luciano (Gabriele Silli), the town’s smartest and most interesting man – and also the local drunk. Luciano fixates on a grievance – the closing of a shortcut for shepherds. In spite of his own anti-social bent (and matted beard), Luciano he falls into a romance. The grievance, the romance and his alcoholism combine to precipitate an accidental tragedy. We next see a sober and guilt-ridden Luciano searching for buried treasure at the barren tip of South America. This is an operatic fable, exquisitely told. The Tale of King Crab is the first narrative feature for writer-directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis and for cinematographer Simone D’Arcangelo. D’Arcangelo’s work, in vibrant Lazio and desolate Tierra del Fuego, is stunning.

FAYE. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

Faye: Filmmakers Kd Amond and Sarah Zanotti have ingeniously braided horror elements into an unexpectedly funny grief movie. Faye (Zanotti) is a best-selling author who is paralyzed by grief. She holes up at her editor’s vacation house in a Louisiana bayou to get herself writing again – her own personal Overlook Hotel. So, we have a woman isolated in a swamp, and she can hear things go bump in the night and the neighbors’ chainsaws. The first thing we notice about Faye is that she is talking to someone who isn’t there – her dead husband. As we listen to Faye (ironically, a self-help author) talking herself though the stages of grief, her sanity goes on a roller coaster and Faye takes on the look and feel of a horror movie. That idea, the exquisite editing and Zanotti’s’s performance makes spending 83 minutes with a neurotic woman eminently watchable.

CLEAN SLATE. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

Clean Slate: In this clear-eyed documentary, Cassidy and Josh are living in a faith-based recovery program – the kind you need to avoid incarceration. They are working to make a short film about the program. It’s stressful enough to make an indie film – finding a no-budget cast and crew, braving torrential downpours while shooting exteriors, and wrangling a roadkill armadillo. But more than a movie is at stake with these guys – they’re both hanging on to their sobriety by their fingernails. Like living with an addict, Clean Slate has its heartbreaking moments. Over 23 million Americans are living in long-term recovery from addiction. Clean Slate is the rare film that explores the connection between relapse and recovery – and it’s a cliff hanger.

Here’s how to find these nuggets:

  • The Tale of King Crab is screening in-person at Nash Fest.
  • Poser and Faye are screening in-person and streaming within the Southeastern United States (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina).
  • Clean Slate is screening in-person and streaming within the United States.

Check out the program and buy tickets at the festival’s Film Guide. Watch this space for Nashville Film Festival recommendations (both in-person and on-line) and follow me on Twitter for the latest.

WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT: her soul and her heart

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Guy Clark holds his favorite photo of Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT

The lyrical documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught is centered on the life of seminal singer-songwriter Guy Clark, a poetic giant of Americana and folk music. That would be enough grist for a fine doc, but Without Getting Killed or Caught also focuses on Clark’s wife, Susanna Clark, a talented painter (album covers for Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris) and songwriter herself (#1 hit I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose). What’s more, Guy’s best friend, the troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, and Susanna revered each other. Van Zandt periodically lived with the Clarks – that’s a lot of creativity in that house – and a lots of strong feelings.

Susanna Clark said it thus, “one is my soul and the other is my heart.”

The three held a salon in their Nashville home, and mentored the likes of Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle. You can the flavor of the salon in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways (AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube). It features Townes Van Zandt’s rendition of his Waitin’ Round to Die. (Susanna was also a muse for Rodney Crowell, who, after her death, wrote the angry song Life Without Susanna.)

Documentarians Tamara Saviano and Paul Whitfield, have unearthed a great story, primarily sourced by Susanna’s diaries; Sissy Spacek voices Susanna’s words. These were artsy folks so there are plenty of exquisite photos of the subjects, too. It all adds up to a beautiful film, spinning the story of these storytellers.

Guy and Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT

I loved this movie, but I’m having trouble projecting its appeal to a general audience, because I am so emotionally engaged with the subject material. I’m guessing that the unusual web of relationships and the exploration of the creative process is universal enough for any audience, even if you’re not a fanboy like me.

The title comes from Guy’s song LA Freeway, a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker:

I can just get off of this L.A. freeway

Without gettin’ killed or caught

There is plenty for us Guy Clarkophiles:

  • the back story for Desperados Waiting for a Train;
  • the identity of LA Freeway’s Skinny Dennis;
  • Guy’s final return from touring, with the declaration “let’s recap”.

There’s also the story of Guy’s ashes; the final resolution is not explicit in the movie but you can figure it out; here’s the story.

Without Getting Killed or Caught is in very limited theatrical run; I saw at the Balboa in its last Bay Area screening.

WILDLAND: giving family ties a bad name

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Photo caption: Sandra Guldberg Kampp in WILDLAND. Photo courtesy of BAC Films.

In the remarkable Danish neo-noir Wildland, teenage Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is orphaned and is placed with relatives that she doesn’t really know. She gradually learns that the family, headed by her mom’s estranged sister (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a ruthless criminal enterprise.

Will Ida become entangled in a life of crime? Can she escape? Wildland simmers and evolves into a nail biter right up to its noir-stained epilogue.

WILDLAND. Photo courtesy of Snowglobe.

Wildland is a study in both study in teen psychology (why doesn’t she report these criminals?) and in dysfunctional family dynamics. The aunt is the indisputable matriarch, and not only runs the crime crew like Tony Soprano, but also seeks to control the personal lives of her adult sons. She infantilizes them, keeps them all living on her house and expects to pick their romantic partners. Jonas (Joachim Fjelstrup), the oldest and most functional-appearing son, is always affable and seems in control – until his mother has a conflicting whim.

Sidse Babett Knudsen was Mads Mikkelsen’s co-star in Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, which I pegged as the second-best movie of its year. Playing a prime minister, she was the lead in the political drama series Borgen, a huge, 30-episode hit in Denmark and the UK. Here, Knudson goes downscale as a trashy, middle-aged mom, still with a saucy walk; she’s always in control – until she isn’t.

Sandra Guldberg Kampp, with her watchful and ever-observant demeanor is perfect as Ida. This is a breakthrough, possibly star-making, performance.

Wildland is the first feature for director Jeanette Nordahl, who also had the idea for the story. The movie’s original Danish title Kød & Blod literally translates as Flesh and Blood.

Wildland has been compared to the Aussie neo-noir Animal Kingdom, which garnered Jacki Weaver an Oscar nod as the ever-ebullient grandma who puts out a hit on her own grandson. Animal Kingdom also featured the crime matriarch with a set of thuggish sons and lots of suspense, but it featured more action than does Wildland – fence-jumping escapes and a shooting at the finale. Wildland is more deeply psychological.

Wildland is streaming on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle.

Previewing the Nashville Film Festival

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Brian Wilson in BRIAN WILSON: LONG PROMISED ROAD. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival

The Nashville Film Festival opens on Thursday, September 30 and runs through October 6 with a diverse menu of cinema, available both in-person and on-line. I have already seen over a dozen films in the program, and I’m impressed so far. I’m am heading back to Nashville for my first in-person film festival coverage since March 2020.

The Nashville Film Festival is the oldest running film festival in the South and is an Academy Award qualifying festival. The program includes a mix of indies, docs and international cinema, including world and North American premieres.

This year’s fest opens strong with the in-person screening of Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, an unusual documentary about an unusual man.  The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work.  The extremely terse Brian Wilson would not be the ideal subject for a conventional interview documentary.  Instead, the filmmakers have Wilson’s old and trusted friend, rock journalist Jason Fine, drive him around important places in Wilson’s life; it’s the format of Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee, and it pays off in with emotional revelations.  It turns out that Wilson is remarkably open about his travails and his creative process – and we get to see which of his songs that Brian himself listens to when he is feeling grief or nostalgia.   

The fest closes with The Humans, Stephen Karam’s film version of his Tony Award-winning play. It’s a family drama with Steven Yuen, Beanie Feldstein, Richard Jenkins, Amy Shumer and June Squibb. I haven’t seen it, but it got promising buzz at Toronto and is slated for a theatrical release by A24.

Lauren Ponto, Nashville Film Festival’s Director of Programming, says, “The 2021 Nashville Film Festival will be a different experience than our audiences are historically accustomed to and our team is excited for the community to be a part of it. The reimagined 52nd Festival will include 150 films ranging in categories from narratives, documentaries, new twists on horror, US Indies, eclectically bold Music Documentaries and much more.“

Ponto continues, “It’s been invigorating to program the Festival this year, knowing that we will be able to showcase a select group of films in person. The content is stronger than ever and very intentional. “

The Nashville Film Festival embraces its home in Music City and emphasizes films about music. Besides Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, the program includes

  • Fanny: The Right to Rock documents the first all-female rock band to get signed by a major record label and churn out five albums. Fifty years ago, the band Fanny was breaking ground for women musicians – and for lesbians and Filipinas. These women can still really rock in their 70s, and they’re a hoot.
  • Poser (my favorite film in the festival) is set in the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North and is packed with original music. It’s a dark psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists.
  • Fable of a Song (a film that I haven’t seen yet) is a documentary about the writing of a song; this film was originally intended to document the creative process, but real life intervenes both to stagger the artists and to impact the very meaning of the song’s lyrics.
  • Hard Luck Love Song (another film that I haven’t seen yet) is a portrait of a troubled, self-sabotaging musician. Inspired by singer-songwriter Todd Snider’s song Just Like Old Times.

See it here first: Old Henry, Hard Luck Love Song, Luzzu, Beta Test, Flee, The Humans, Clara Sola, The Tale of King Crab and Poser have all secured distribution and will be available to theater and/or watch-at-home audiences. Before just anybody can watch them, you can get your personal preview at the Nashville Film Festival.

Check out the program and buy tickets at the festival’s Film Guide. Watch this space for Nashville Film Festival recommendations (both in-person and on-line) and follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitchen in POSER. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE: some dignity for the clown

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Photo caption: Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE

Jessica Chastain’s powerhouse performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye humanizes and brings dignity to a disgraced celebrity. Tammy Faye, of course, is Tammy Faye Bakker, married to televangelist Jim Bakker of the PTL Club. The relentlessly upbeat couple eschewed fire-and-brimstone for a happy talk ministry based on “Jesus loves you” and “God wants you to be rich”.

Jim Bakker was the preacher and talk show host. Tammy Faye was the singer, puppeteer and sidekick. Tammy Faye’s on-her-sleeve emotions, swinging between pep talks and ready tears – were especially popular (and revenue-inducing) with the PTL Club’s audience.

Of course, the ministry empire was a Ponzi scheme, which eventually sent Jim into federal prison; a sex scandal precipitated the collapse. The story is well-chronicled in the excellent 2000 documentary, also titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye, upon which this movie is based (available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube).

Jim Bakker (and certainly not Tammy Faye) was the mastermind of the fraud. But Tammy Faye, with her increasingly grotesque makeup and her flamboyant persona, had also become a figure of widespread ridicule, and her fall from grace was also very harsh.

Chastain’s convincing performance is centered on Tammy Faye’s EverReady Bunny exuberance and naive good intentions. Reportedly, she had to spend several hours each day getting outfitted wih prosthetics and daubed with makeup.

Andrew Garfield perfectly captures Jim Bakker’s smarminess and ambiguous sexuality.

Tammy Faye’s mother is played by Cherry Jones (Transparent), who always gives a strong performance. Here she plays a character who starts out seeming to be an emotionally distant, kill-the-dream stick-in-the-mud, but who evolves into the story’s moral anchor.

The one false note in The Eyes of Tammy Faye is Vincent D’Onofrio, who is supposed to be playing Jerry Falwell. Falwell, of course, was rarely seen without his smug grin. Onofrio plays him as a hulking, never smiling menace and with a much different accent and speech pattern than Falwell’s. It’s as if D’Onofrio had never seen Falwell, and his performance completely misses the insincerity and hypocrisy behind Falwell’s veneer of affability.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is now in theaters.

KANSAS CITY BOMBER: self-discovery at the roller derby track

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Raquel Welch (right) in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Kansas City Bomber, which plays September 23 on Turner Classic Movies, is a hella entertaining, kickass 1970s tale of female self-discovery. Raquel Welch plays a single mom scraping by, who skates in the roller derby at night. She and her daughter (Jodie Foster in only her second feature film film) move to a new city, and she joins the local roller derby team. She becomes the team’s star, and the team owner (Kevin McCarthy) is eager to date her (she’s Raquel Welch!) and use her to leverage his next business expansion.

There is a significant power imbalance between the skater and the owner – for starters, she’s broke in a new town, and he’s her boss. He expects both to have her sexually and to cynically profit from her talent. Will she be exploited or not? Is she another of his pawns?

Kevin McCarthy in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

In 1972, Raquel Welch was thought of more as a novelty movie star than as an actress. She had become instantly recognizable for displaying her spectacular figure in a skintight spacesuit (Fantastic Voyage), a doe-skin bikini (One Billion Years B.C.), a star spangled bikini (Myra Breckenridge), and flimsy undergarments (100 Rifles). Although the poster of her cavewoman bikini had gone viral, she hadn’t gotten the chance to show that she could act.

The role of the hard scrabble single mom in Kansas City Bomber was perfect for Welch. Welch had two kids by the time she was 21 and was divorced at 24. While trying to make it in showbiz, she bounced between jobs as a department store model, cocktail waitress and TV “weathergirl”.

In her performance in Kansas City Bomber, Welch nails the character of a woman committed to raising her kid while facing one indignity and bad choice after another. She also was up to the physicality of a character who competes in a contact sport where fisticuffs are common. Raquel reportedly has that said that Kansas City Bomber was the first of her films that she actually liked. And, as in The Three Musketeers a few years after, she got to show her acting chops.

Trivia digression: Welch’s father was Bolivian, and her cousin was the first female president of Bolivia.

Jodie Foster and Raquel Welch in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Kansas City Bomber is a genre film that works because, along with the subtext of feminist self discovery, the action is really good. Besides mixing it up on the track, Welch’s character beats up some male attackers, too.

Kansas City Bomber has real professional roller derby skaters and includes actual roller derby action and crowd reactions. The actors were roughed up during the shoot, and Raquel said “Skating is a batchy, sweaty, funky life.” Verisimilitude abounds. Kansas City Bomber is indisputably the best-ever roller derby movie. (My own favorite childhood team was the Bay Bombers with Joanie Weston and Charlie O’Connell.)

Raquel Welch and Helena Kallianiotes in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

Helena Kallianiotes plays the rival roller derby star in the Big Race at the finale. Kallianiotes was unforgettable as the unbearably negative hitchhiker in Five Easy Pieces (her first credited role); this is one of only ten feature films in her career. Bill McKinney, one of the the infamous “Squeal Like a Pig” hillbillies in Deliverance, also appears.

Besides catching it on TCM this week, you can stream Kansas City Bomber from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Raquel Welch in KANSAS CITY BOMBER

THE CARD COUNTER: a loner, his code and his past

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Photo caption: Oscar Isaac in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

Oscar Isaac stars in Card Counter, Paul Schrader’s dark portrait of a highly disciplined loner who lives by a code but can’t submerge his past. Isaac’s character, improbably named William Tell, is a professional gambler, who lives in an endless string of motels and casinos.

The first thing we learn about William Tell is his rigid sense of self-discipline – in an OCD display of entering a new motel room and covering each piece of furniture in twine-bound sheets. This is an expert who can win free money at casinos, but resists winning too much, so he doesn’t get kicked out. He prefers anonymity to acclaim. More than anything, William Tell invests in keeping his head down.

It turns out that Tell has been traumatized by things he did as an army guard at Abu Ghraib – and the consequences. It’s no surprised that yet another solitary, emotionally damaged character has sprung from the dark mind of Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, First Reformed).

Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

Above all, Tell is a man with a code. He meets a young man (Tye Sheridan), also haunted by the aftereffect of Abu Ghraib, who is consumed by a revenge fantasy. Although Tell avoids social entanglements, he is compelled to save the kid from himself.

Although most of The Card Counter takes place in casinos, it’s really not gambling movie. There is some card play and some gaming procedure. This is a character-driven story – and it’s not about who wins or how much. Schrader playfully hints at a big poker showdown, but it’s a red herring.

The role of this intense and obsessive man is perfect for Oscar Isaac and his piercing gaze. I usually don’t warm to Isaac, although he has been proficient in some films that I love: Ex Machina, The Two Faces of January. Maybe I don’t see a sense of humor in there? Anyway, he is stellar here.

Tye Sheridan is excellent as the young man bent on revenge. Tiffany Haddish plays a woman who runs a stable of professional gamblers and lives off her emotional intelligence; it’s a delight every time she is on-screen. The great Willem Dafoe appears in a brief but pivotal role.

I haven’t ever seen a movie character like William Tell, which makes The Card Counter an excellent watch.