Ditto Mike's relationship with Worm. When Martin Scorsese did the same thing in Mean Streets with Charlie and Johnny Boy, and when John Schlesinger did it with Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, the scenes felt fresh, thanks to the raw staging, improvised dialogue and palpable air of danger. Damon and Norton play similar roles, but much more cautiously - as acting exercises. They're obviously having fun. They're like a couple of suburban rich kids who travel into the city on weekends to stand on a street corner, smoke cigarettes and curse without mom finding out.
Rounders is a slick, fine-tuned Hollywood genre picture posing as an independent movie.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's something to be said for crude showbiz vigor. Though he's only been considered an A-list leading man for nine months, he's already becoming predictable. This film, like that one, devotes unseemly energy to reminding us how smart, sexy, promising and nigh irresistible its hero is. The real star of this film is Jean Yves Escoffier's widescreen photography.