ever wonder what happened to gabe kaplan ?
you remember , he was the title character in that 70 's sitcom , " welcome back kotter . " always trying to help out the sweathogs , frequently trying to dodge mr . woodman , ever wary of his wife 's tuna casserole .
" so , " you ask , " where is he now ?
" mr .
kaplan actually spends much of his time these days playing professional high - stakes poker .
that 's right .
i 'm not sure if it 's his main source of income , but from what i 've heard , the guy occasionally comes away with $ 20 , 000 at a time .
and there you were , thinking i was going to tell you he was doing off - broadway theater .
you silly goose .
well , gabe kaplan is n't in the movie rounders , nor is the film about the actor come gambler 's life .
but rounders is about poker , and gabe plays poker , and i thought that was kind of a neat connection .
sorry about the segue , or lack thereof .
matt damon plays mike mcdermott , a law student who also has a singular talent for the game of poker .
he 's been playing for a while , and more than being proficient , he has caught the bug .
he goes to all the underground games in new york city , knows the regulars , and knows how to win .
in the beginning of the film , he 's built up a nice thirty grand nest egg , which he takes to the speakeasy - type gaming parlor where the big boys play .
mike is there to make his bid into the upper echelon by staking it all against teddy kgb ( john malkovich ) , an oreo - munching cardshark with ties to the russian mafia .
mike has the potential to take a large pot and go to vegas and buy into the world series of poker , but instead he loses it all in a single hand .
months later , he 's paying his way through law school by driving a delivery truck .
when mike 's best friend and poker buddy worm ( edward norton ) finishes his jail term for hustling some students , he wants to pick up right were they left off , working as a team to part others with their betting cash .
although mike has stopped playing cards as a promise to his girlfriend and fellow law student , jo ( gretchen mol ) , worm connives mike into playing once more , and mike , bitten again by the bug , slides down that slippery slope , risking his relationship , education , and reputation as playing poker again becomes the focus of his life .
to make a film about gambling , a filmmaker will usually have to play up the glamorous side to get the audience behind the characters .
this is because few moviegoers will care a whole lot about some guy in a leisure suit or terry cloth shirt sitting at a folding card table with a stogie in his mouth .
rounders , however , seems to go more for the latter than the former .
the card clubs mike and worm frequent are n't very glamorous at all .
there 's a basement , a lodge with elk heads on the wall , a goulash joint - these are the kinds of locales in which director john dahl sets his shots . except for one brief instance when the two players visit atlantic city , the film is bereft of the flashing lights of the casinos or the pleasant color of the green felt table .
the reason rounders still captures our attention is because it is less about the game of poker than it is about the personalities which enjoy and are slaves to it .
we 're given a nice set of interesting characters with clear motivations , and good actors to play them .
matt damon is very natural as mike , who struggles between his desire to play the straight and narrow by finishing law school , and answering what may be his true calling , playing professional poker .
ed norton 's worm is truly a worm , always looking for the angle and playing everyone for what they 're worth .
john turturro , who amazes me with his acting range , tones it down in this film by playing joey knish , a virtual poker prodigy in his time who now plays the underground games to make rent and child support payments .
he 's both a friend and mentor to mike , and turturro 's low - key performance is totally convincing , just as john malkovich 's heavily - accented teddy kgb is imposing as an adversarial dragon mike must slay to prove himself .
martin landau is also thrown into the mix as one of mike 's law professors , abe petrovsky .
while landau slips well into the role , his character , spitting out personal anecdotes about staying true to one 's self , facilitates the channeling of the storyline toward a predictable ending .
perhaps the weak link in the otherwise formidable line - up of acting talent , however , is gretchen mol who just did n't seem to have much presence on screen .
she 's a genuine peach to look at , kind of a cross between actress renee zellweger and singer jewel ( and i would n't be surprised if the three of them formed some kind of blond - haired triumvirate and attempted to take over the world ) , but her delivered lines seemed very flat , and i found myself looking for matt damon 's reactions instead .
a good thing about rounders is that it does n't get bogged down in the character development and statement making so much that it ca n't find time for humor .
the film is peppered nicely with scenes that both make you laugh and keep the pacing going , such as a sequence where mike and worm move rapidly around new york from one game to the next , in widely different locales .
one game in a cigar club had me in stitches .
"
i love the sweetness of this dark maduro wrapper , " says one of the players , clearly more interested in displaying his pretentiousness over the cigar in one hand than in the cards in his other .
i was hoping mike and worm would really take these guys .
with all the poker being played , rounders had the potential to be very confusing .
you might think you know a lot about poker , but think again .
luckily , we 're given a narration by damon during the more intricate moments to explain what 's going on .
the narrations are more informative than intrusive , and apprise us of what the stakes are and why certain players want to do the things they do .
it 's nice that as the characters develop , so does our comprehension of their world .
as a film about success and survival in the realm of underground poker , rounders delivers in spades .
wait !
as a film about the culture of cards , rounders is an ace .
hang on !
packed with great acting and great characters , rounders is a full house .
okay , i guess that 's enough .
oh , by the way , if you ever want to get into a game with ol' gabe kaplan , be sure to bring a note from epstein 's mother .
Output: P