A good movie

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. First of all, for Rupert Wyatt, this movie was such a weird career move. I mean, back in 2011, he had managed to relaunch the Planet of the Apes franchise with 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' which had been a big commercial and critical success. However, he declined to direct the next installment because, apparently, he felt he didn't have enough time to reach the release date. Instead, he decided to direct this rather obscure remake of another obscure movie from the 70's which would be eventually released also in 2014, the exact same year 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' came out... Anyway, after all, this movie didn't get much love when it was released but I have to admit that I always had a weak spot for movies dealing with gambling degenerates. In this case, even if the story was rather generic and predictable, I really liked the tone though and the main character was maybe not fascinating but still interesting enough. It was also neat to see Mark Wahlberg finally doing something else than his usual action flicks or comedies. On top of that, he did deliver a solid performance, even though it is always hard to swallow it when he is playing some supposedly super smart character but I have to admit that, this time, he almost convinced me. Concerning the rest of the cast, they were all fine, except for Brie Larson. I mean, she wasn't bad at all but her character was rather thankless and seriously underdeveloped. In fact, from all the characters, she was the only me who didn't make much sense and, basically, she was there just to make sure that the main character would have a (completely random) love interest. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was nothing really groundbreaking, I thought it was still fairly entertaining and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10