Boy, whatever happened to Dario Argento? He always was wacky, something that crept into all of his films, but during the prime of his career he was also innovative, stylish and unpredictable. Almost all observers think of Argento's golden era ranging from "Profondo Rosso" to "Opera", or from the mid-1970's to the late 1980's. When entering the 90's he suddenly seemed to have lost interest in the fancy set pieces and stylish flourishes that made his name. Which would be fine if the viewer were rewarded with other things, such as good acting, reasonable dialogue and a script that makes sense. These three things have largely been absent throughout Argento's career, but the aforementioned strengths always compensated.
No such luck with "The Card Player." A specific style is completely missing, this film looks for the most part like a made-for-TV thriller. It also shows Argento's musical collaborator Simonetti erring again, this time by including some truly dreadful techno music (which almost destroys whatever tension the climax has). Set pieces are also absent, with even the more interesting moments like Remo's chase through the back streets coming of as mundane. Acting is typically mediocre-to-dreadful: The main actors are better than usual, also because both were not dubbed in post-production, but their roles are stock characters without much in the way of originality or interest. Character motivation and background is badly integrated or merely stated. Supporting actors are almost universally dreadful, hamming it up in the worst possible ways. Also absent is Argento's trademark gore, though this is far from the worst problem. Actually, Argento manages to stir up some dread without a splash of blood in a sequence in which a victim of the card player almost escapes which is caught by the web cam used for his transmission.
The worst part of this film, however, is a really dull script with lots of implausible plot holes the size of Sicily and an equally dull murderer with a non-existent motive. After so many giallos it is kind of hard to expect fresh tricks, but Argento also makes a terrible job here to disguise the killer. I had the correct killer identified before the ten-minute mark. And this despite a last-minute script change that changed the killer as the first choice was seen as "too obvious". How this is possible is beyond me, as even the character they chose couldn't be more obvious if he had a sign "I'm the secret psychopathic killer" around his neck. Subsequently, any possible tension is completely absent. All that's left is to focus on the flaws which are too many to mention. While never truly dreadful, "The Card Player" is something worse: deadly dull.
No such luck with "The Card Player." A specific style is completely missing, this film looks for the most part like a made-for-TV thriller. It also shows Argento's musical collaborator Simonetti erring again, this time by including some truly dreadful techno music (which almost destroys whatever tension the climax has). Set pieces are also absent, with even the more interesting moments like Remo's chase through the back streets coming of as mundane. Acting is typically mediocre-to-dreadful: The main actors are better than usual, also because both were not dubbed in post-production, but their roles are stock characters without much in the way of originality or interest. Character motivation and background is badly integrated or merely stated. Supporting actors are almost universally dreadful, hamming it up in the worst possible ways. Also absent is Argento's trademark gore, though this is far from the worst problem. Actually, Argento manages to stir up some dread without a splash of blood in a sequence in which a victim of the card player almost escapes which is caught by the web cam used for his transmission.
The worst part of this film, however, is a really dull script with lots of implausible plot holes the size of Sicily and an equally dull murderer with a non-existent motive. After so many giallos it is kind of hard to expect fresh tricks, but Argento also makes a terrible job here to disguise the killer. I had the correct killer identified before the ten-minute mark. And this despite a last-minute script change that changed the killer as the first choice was seen as "too obvious". How this is possible is beyond me, as even the character they chose couldn't be more obvious if he had a sign "I'm the secret psychopathic killer" around his neck. Subsequently, any possible tension is completely absent. All that's left is to focus on the flaws which are too many to mention. While never truly dreadful, "The Card Player" is something worse: deadly dull.