The Card Counter

A troubled US military veteran makes his living at the card tables of humdrum casinos in this characteristic fable of damnation and redemption from Paul Schrader. The writer/director has long explored the lives of haunted souls, and in Oscar Isaac's repressed, obsessive protagonist he has created one of his most compelling characters. Isaac plays a man who wins at poker thanks to his ability to recall every card played, but while talent manager Tiffany Haddish thinks he's ready for the bigger leagues, this convicted Abu Ghraib torturer is only just keeping his inner turmoil in check. The plot tests credibility at times as it toggles between opposing possibilities of reform or revenge, yet Isaac's intensely focused central performance and the soul-crushingly anonymous hotel circuit milieu create a potent atmosphere of doom. With his film, Schrader makes a strong statement about US military iniquities in Iraq leaving a festering scar on the American psyche.