Gambling movies, like submarine movies, generally don’t have too many variables. At some point in just about every sub movie, the submarine gets torpedoed and/or sinks to “crush depth,” and the captain and crew either get killed or, more often, survive. Likewise, in cards and billiards movies (not to mention sports films in general, of which gambling flicks are a boozier subset), the plot typically comes down to: in the big, climactic competition, does your rooting interest win or lose? And in most stories, the outcome, while faux suspenseful, is usually pretty easy to predict.
So it’s one of the strengths of indie staple Chris Eigeman’s writing and directing debut Turn the River, about Famke Janssen’s desperate, homeless, pool-hustling card sharp, that not only is the outcome of her particular “big game,” when it comes, anything but a foregone conclusion, but also that her ultimate success or failure in the contest is only one element in a suspenseful skein of fateful plot developments.
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