Offbeat poker horror film The Card Player (Il Cartio), from Italian director Dario Argento, comes to DVD on August 23rd amid, at best, mixed reviews. Theatrical release in the U.S. was limited, but the movie will be widely available for purchase online. If the very notion of a poker thriller seems a bit odd, then the plot itself is downright weird, if not a bit silly. The film follows the story of a serial killer in Rome who challenges city police to games of online video poker, games that will ultimately decide the fate of each of the killer's female abductees. For each game police lose, the killer severs a part of the victim's body. Going according to a sort of “three strikes, you're out" rule, after police have lost three times, the girl dies.

The heroine of the film is detective Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca), who has her own poker demons to battle. Mari's father flung himself from a train to escape the burden of his own poker debts, giving Mari a personal agenda on the case, a twist apparently added for interesting film making. Apparently, indeed. The killer, as it turns out, knows more about Mari than she would probably like, and eventually traps her in his absurd online poker web. The movie peaks with Mari bound to train tracks, while she is forced to play online poker.

Reviews have ranged from semi-positive, mostly from die-hard fans of the once renown director, to downright ridicule. For many, the online poker plot point was a little hard to digest.

Source:  Poker777 Staff

Sunday, 21 August 2005