>Damn when I see the reviews of this movie I feel isolated lol

[spoiler]The film is an internal drama about the US military. The layers here are inserted quite silently, as the story itself asks. I noticed here some ideological confusions about the film. I personally don't believe this movie is about US imperialism. But about men believing they are doing good things when they are actually doing horrible things. It is important to emphasize that I do not agree with all the decisions of the film, but I have to emphasize that this film is not an expository film, but a reflective film and after the drama comes the suspense. This film uses irony to talk about things and its biggest opponent is an American poker idol. In this sense, I have the impression that the film was successful in the message it carries and I think it is courageous to show that everyone has a second chance and that in the raw of things, whether in war or westerns, everything is about carrying and making use of your emotions. own words.[/spoiler]

==Don't get confused this movie is about a bad guy trying to do something good with his life.==

I can't even put into words my distaste for this movie. Only Americans will ask you to feel bad for their war criminals. The quote by Frankie Boyle describes this film perfectly, _“Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, they’ll come back twenty years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.”_ The whole point of _The Card Counter_ is to try to get you to sympathize with a war criminal who tortured, killed, terrorized people. Not only that but it's extremely unrealistic to ask the viewer to believe that anyone responsible for Abu Ghraib faced meaningful consequences. Like, come on, now!

This movie followed the most boring protagonists, who are as dull as they can get. Zero chemistry between any member of the cast. Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, and Tye Sheridan are basically in 3 different movies and each one of them is total garbage:

1. _"Abu Ghraib torturer, but make him seeeexy"_ How? Oh, cast hot actor with beautiful eyes. Plus, he did his time, 8 years for the most vile crimes you can possibly imagine. But he is a good guy now. He fucks girls and support college kids. For someone I guess we're supposed to dislike (?), the movie spends a lot of time showing how cool he is.

2. Tiffany Haddish must’ve been the only actress to audition for the role of La Linda because she was radically miscast. She is not ready for dramatic acting. As for her character – she is independent and has connections with rich folks … that’s it. Wow, so interesting, right?! The 'chemistry' between her and Isaac was weird. It wasn’t seductive, it just felt like watching high schoolers flirt, but even more painful.

3. Cirk seemed like he is dumb as rocks. To expect us to care so much about a kid who we don't even know is irresponsible. I couldn't care less about his death or revenge killing.

Oh, and there is another character introduced like "USA!" guy with no point. But he was born in Ukraine, so he is not American. Oscar Isaac was born in Guatemala, grew up in USA and plays an American dude, while people born in Ukraine who grew up in USA are only Ukrainian. Even if you want to follow American rules, you just can’t because the Yanks are very inconsistent and hypocritical.

Most bad movies have some redeeming qualities. I can’t think of anything with this, everything just felt so bland to me:

* Nothing is happening, and the movie is sooo repetitive . Oscar Isaac looking serious and walking in a casino,with suspenseful music - this is like 80% of the movie.

* Almost every scene is an end in itself, nothing is explored, and doesn’t progress the story at all scene to scene.

* The music. Oh, the music, which mainly featured vapid, brooding indie/electronic songs, is just all over the place here. I hated it!

* There is basically no concept of tension or mystery, which is pretty important when you’re watching a fake game of poker.

* The philosophy was so juvenile, and the movie lacks anything interesting to say. We are supposed to believe the main character is very mysterious and smart but he is one of the most boring, dull and flat characters I have ever seen.

* The dialogue is godawful, no exaggeration here! _"I have no goals", "Have you ever read a book", "What is your story"_ etc. It felt so awkward and as if the characters aren’t even talking to each other.

* Why is it called _The Card Counter_ when the main character counted cards once onscreen and then spends the entire movie playing poker?

Did I see a different movie than all of these people rating it high?

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting - but this rather meandering drama left me leaving the cinema asking what or whom this film was for? Oscar Isaac ("William Tell") is a gambler - a successful, under the radar kind of fellow - with a military past steeped in trauma. He encounters a young man "Cirk" (Tye Sheridan) with whom he has something in common - both men have suffered at the hands of his former CO "Gordo" (Willem Dafoe). The older man, wishes to temper the anger and lust for revenge of the younger, and takes him under his wing. Except, well, he doesn't really. He takes him on tours of the poker games, shares his winnings, introduces him to his fixer "La Linda" (Tiffany Haddish). That, though, is all he seems to be offering the young man - a shell upon which he can become a bored, barnacle!. That's when I found myself looking at my watch. Towards the end, the plot takes a swing for left field that is not only sad, but also a precursor to an ending that is frankly really quite poor. The dialogue is strained, and though Haddish easily wins on the star front here, the rest of the cast sort of loll around in a soporific haze of emotional baggage that really is quite dreary to watch. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but looking around me in the cinema - plenty of other people seemed to wondering why they hadn't gone to see "Spencer" too...

I had a little trouble following the story, and I thought it was somewhat dark. I am sure there is an audience for this kind of production, but I struggled to make it to the end. On the plus side, Oscar Isaac did a good job portraying his part.⭐⭐⭐

It’s fitting that The Card Counter’s protagonist’s last name is Tell. Not because he has one (as played by Oscar Isaac, he doesn’t have a poker face so much as he is perennially inexpressive), but because writer/director Paul Schrader (unusually phoning it in) lazily favors ‘telling’ over 'showing.’

One would think that the dude who’s written or co-written arguably the top four Martin Scorsese films could come up with something better than a glorified poker tutorial, complete with visual aids.

To put it in perspective, consider Robert Altman’s infinitely superior California Split, in which “We don’t need to know anything about gambling to understand the odyssey [the protagonists] undertake to the tracks, to the private poker parties, to bars, to Vegas, to the edge of defeat and to the scene of victory. Their compulsion is so strong that it carries us along” (Ebert).

But there is no compulsion in The Card Counter; Bill Tillich, aka William Tell, is not a gambler out of weakness (like Jimmy Caan in the also superior The Gambler), but out of convenience: he is good at it – to the point that not only is he debt-free, but can afford the luxury of paying others’ debts. He’s unqualified to do anything else, but then there’s nothing he’s interested in doing.

According to Bill, “The smartest bet for a rookie is red/black at roulette… You win, you walk. You lose, you go. It’s the only smart casino bet.“ It may be smart, but hardly riveting stuff. Who could possibly ever be interested in the story of a gambler who knows when to fold'em?

Thus, Schrader resorts to stealing a page out of 80s pro wrestling’s playbook: namely, Middle East-related cheap heat in the form of an inexplicable subplot dealing with the torture and abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq. Now, there’s a gamble that doesn’t even come close to paying off.