Clive Owens, Alex Kingston, Gina McKee, Kate Hardie, Alexander Morton. Directed by Mike Hodges. Aspiring London writer Jack Manfred (Owens) is being leaned on by his publisher to write a novel about soccer and he's suffering from writer's block. To make some money to pay the rent Jack takes a job as a croupier (card dealer) at the Golden Gate casino, a job he held before when he was working in South Africa. His ex-cop girlfriend Marion (McKee) is not impressed, since she wanted to be with a writer. Jack refuses to gamble himself, considering the "punters" who gamble weak and predictable. It is forbidden for male and female croupiers to fraternize, but after one croupier Bella (Hardie) helps him get out of a jam, he spends the night with her. And inexplicably, Bella is canned from the casino the next day. Soon, he starts writing a book about the gaming business, using his experiences with corrupt card dealers, the idle rich blowing wads of money and desperate gamblers too far in the hole to get back out. One of those desperate gamblers is Jani (Kingston), who tells Jack she is in danger for her life because of gambling debts. Jack is an honest dealer, and she enlists him to get into a staged fight with a cheating customer as a diversion while Jani's creditors rob the casino. And while he thinks he has the situation under control, he doesn't realize that he's taking a big gamble. He discovers that some of the women around him are not what they seem, and that he doesn't know all he thinks he does. Croupier harkens back to the old film noirs of the 40's, where none of the characters are particularly good, and everyone has a secret. Jack thinks he has everyone figured out, but he is not blessed with the self-awareness to know he hasn't figured himself out. He thinks he is in control, but the lure of the gaming business slowly changes him. He begins to think that he can't lose, going to so far as taking part of a robbery and convincing himself he was just doing it for the research - he tells us he isn't going to spend the money so he is somehow above it all. Each of Jack's girlfriends have hidden at least some of their true motivations from Jack, although he believes he's got all of them pegged. Like the classic Bogart film noir The Big Sleep, this film has a complicated plot with secrets and events going unexplained. Such as why was Bella fired? How does Marion learn about the planned robbery? And some others that I won't mention because revealing them would give away too much of the plot. The performances are strong throughout. Veteran British stage actor Owens is smoothly cool, exuding a calm and controlled persona of a man who believes he's in control. Each of the three girlfriends are quite good, especially Kingston as the femme fatale gambler in distress who pretends to be a damsel in distress, but is just playing him for her own reasons. She even compliments Jack's honest character as a way to convince him to do an obviously dishonest act. Often surprising, always interesting, Croupier is one of the best films so far this year. If you would like to respond, please click the E-Mail Press Here To Go To The Review List Page