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Jack sees himself as a character in one of his unwritten books. ‘Jack the observer’ sees himself as ‘Jack the writer’, or ‘Jack the croupier’, never just ‘Jack the person’. He looks upon the world as an unfolding story, in which he is playing the main character as he speaks to us in third person narrative “Jack spins the wheel not knowing where the ball will fall”. This makes this thinly plotted film stylish and slick.

Released in 1998 and Directed by Mike Hodgen (Get Carter). Croupier stars Clive Owen, Gina McKee, and Alex Kingston. Set in London, Casino falls under the category Crime/Drama.

- SYNOPSIS -

Narrated in the third person by Jack (Clive Owen), this is an interesting film about a frustrated writer, Jack, who is suffering with writers block. Uninspired, and with no real direction in his life, his father (Nicholas Ball) suggests a job for him at a friends casino in London.

Jack is already a professional croupier having worked as a dealer in South Africa. He lives with his long suffering girlfriend Marion (Gina McKee) in a small flat in London. She would like so much more from him emotionally, and wants Jack to settle down, and focus, and pursue his career as a writer, but Jack decides to take the job in the casino to gain more life experience which might aid in his future writing, and also to bring in some much needed cash.

When you work in the world of casinos there is an unwritten rule that you don’t become friendly with the punters, it isn’t allowed, and can face instant dismissal if this does occur, for obvious reasons. So Jack takes the oath fully knowing the consequences if he breaks this rule. Jack is an observer, and he weighs up, and absorbs all that is going on around him, never missing a trick, and he tells us what he thinks in the narrative as it occurs. He adapts to the casino world well, and even changes his appearance to fit into the role, much like an actor would. He dyes his peroxide blonde hair to black, smartens up his casual appearance, and takes to wearing a black hat, and required black dealers suit.

I think he sees himself as a character in one of his unwritten books. ‘Jack the observer’ sees himself as ‘Jack the writer’, or ‘Jack the croupier’, never just ‘Jack the person’. He looks upon the world as an unfolding story, and he is playing the main character as he speaks to us in third person narrative “Jack spins the wheel not knowing where the ball will fall”.

This makes this thinly plotted film stylish and slick. I like this type of film, and find it much more interesting than the standard style of dialogue that is normally used in film making. Jacks character is well developed throughout the film, and he is portrayed as calculated, secretive, and cunning. His girlfriend has a hard time dealing with this, and their relationship becomes very strained. It seems on the surface a pretty one sided relationship because Jack keeps his emotions under wraps. South African Yani (Alex Kingston) starts to visit his table and eventually the inevitable happens and Jack breaks the golden rule, and the main story begins to unfold. -

I love this film. It is fine British film making. Great storyline, simple yet extremely effective. The cast is quite small and each player plays their part convincingly.

It is well cast and each character comes across very believable. That’s all I ask of a film really, if you can’t believe in the characters, then the film, no matter how much money has been ploughed into it, is of no avail to me. The acting has to be believable and hopefully all else will follow.

Clive Owen was great in this film, I loved the way in which he talked us through the unfolding story, and I was immediately empathising with this character who let himself be led astray, not through weakness but with a writers eye, and an eagerness to see where each situation would take him, and what he could learn and take from it. He was living his part, gathering valuable subject matter, and quickly becoming the main character in his new, and as yet, unwritten novel.

Croupier has the feel when watching it, that it may have been crafted from the old fashioned stable of crime story. I like this aspect and felt at times as if I was actually reading a crime novel, or listening to an audio version, rather than watching the film. This is a clever film, and many just didn’t ‘get it’. They found it hard to get the much needed Hollywood funding to begin the filming in the first place. But get the funding they did, in the end. It would have been a great shame to have missed out on such a original production as Croupier. When it was first screened in 1998 there was occasion to people walking out of the cinemas during the course of the film, they should have stayed with it. Croupier is a sharp and intelligent film in many ways.

This isn’t your typical Brit crime flick at all, it is a lot more. I would describe it as a thinking man’s crime thriller. There are no stereotypical cockney, cheeky chappy, style gangsters, it’s all pretty realistic stuff going on in this film. Cleverly screenwritten by Paul Mayersberg Croupier incorporates a quiet tension, as Jack is shown as becoming a bit of a loose cannon in the respect that he begins to make choices which are not the right ones and choices which seem well out of character for him. You are never quite sure what he will do next. But at the end of the day, his whole existence is just an adventure to gather information, which will be used in the writing of his novel, with him playing the main character, and I began to view Jack as ‘just that’ as the film progresses.

The camera work is cleverly done, with good use of fast cutting, particularly in the casino scenes. We are afforded glimpses of the table action, and general business of casino life, in snatches long enough to absorb the information you are seeing and hearing , but not quite long enough to fully understand what Jacks thoughts and spoken narration are referring to, this action being off camera.

You have to keep up, and Croupier will keep you on your toes. The film was of interest to me because I was a croupier myself for about four years, and I felt the dealing scenes were particularly well done, very realistic, especially when Jack dealt the Blackjack. I should think he probably did the dealers training before taking on this part; after all it’s not hard, and took me ten day in all to train for American roulette and blackjack. His scenes of blackjack dealing were very impressive; in fact all attention to detail was spot on in the casino scenes.

Croupier is a smooth, slick and stylish film which possesses a special quality about it. It has a film noir feel to it. This film has been used in ‘Film studies’ A level for text analysis.-

Croupier is a believable film which portrays the British crime scene as down to earth and realistic, and in my opinion a film that is well worth viewing and appreciating. “A fascinating journey into the underworld of gambling”. -

Running Time: 94 minutes.
BBFC Rating: 15

- Directed by -
Mike Hodges
Produced by
Jonathan Cavendish
Christine Ruppert
Written by
Paul Mayersberg
Starring
Clive Owen
Alex Kingston
Gina McKee
Kate Hardie
Nick Reding
Paul Reynolds
Music by
Simon Fisher-Turner
Cinematography Michael Garfath