Cornered in a local DVD shop, a young woman ranted and raved about her favorite of directors, Dario Argento. "Suspiria", "The Phantom of the Opera", and "The Card Player" were among the titles dropped. I decided to appease the aggressive fanatic by taking home "The Card Player", and now I know what all the fuss was about. This crime story is told with a respect for classical cinematic techniques and a passion for modern digital effects and technology. Carried by a technotastic soundtrack provided by Goblin member Claudio Simonetti, "The Card Player" delivers where many Hollywood suspense thrillers fail.

It's not slash-trash, nor is it too heady; rather, it's a reasonable compromise between the two. The story paces itself, as characters and mainstream narrative form come secondary. Out of respect for the art of cinema, I have to mention some of the more aesthetic virtues that exist in "The Card Player" because it's not common that I see modern films using these techniques, as popular filmmaking has more or less laid them to rest. In order to appreciate the jump cuts, absence of transitions, and seemingly odd placement of side story sequences, viewers of "The Card Player" have to take into consideration that Argento is not simply a director; he is an Italian film auteur giving his audiences a lesson in the power and potential of cinematic form. This film exudes a passion for montage by its deliberate utilization of unrequired trick shots, blending the world together with the use of a medium-toned color palate. The film begins as Anna, a detective in Rome, is emailed a demand to play games of online Poker where the stakes are the life or death of a hostage. The police department, reluctant to agree, soon realizes they must bring in a team of experts in order to find a way to deal with the criminal. Romance develops between Anna and a detective from London as they search for a way to close in on the serial killer.

After a series of twists and turns, Anna evolves personally and professionally as she learns that the game goes deeper than she first though. One problem that I often find true with foreign films is the voice-overs can at times be awful. "The Card Player" is an English language film, however, I suspect that in order to make it more appealing to an English audience the Italian voices were replaced by sterile and generic American voice talent. If this is not the case, the original Italian cast overdubbed their lines with impeccable American accents, leaving not a trace of their native flair. Forgive this reviewer for making assumptions, however, I make the observation in order to plead that in the future there will be a time when voice-overs do justice to the corresponding images. There are a few characters who are fortunate enough to retain their own voices; including Anna, the singing coroner, and a few more characters. The annoyance by this only lasts about ten minutes, as the action replaces the concern you may have over how the actors are talking. Since there is a serial killer on the loose, you can imagine there will be plenty of blood and dead bodies.

The corpses are grotesquely real, prodded at, poked, examined, and one happens to regurgitate into the face of an examiner. The overall intensity during the gaming scenes runs high as each game lost by the police results in the amputation of a part of the hostage's body... the third loss resulting in a box cutter to the throat. At the end of the film, an old fashioned tied to the railroad tracks standoff occurs, resulting in the dismemberment and subsequent jarring ricochet of a fleshy torso beneath the passing train. Aside from a weak script, the acting is quite good.

Anna (Stephania Rocca) is particularly charming and pliant, and I would like to see more of her work. John (Liam Cunningham) plays the alcoholic London detective and Anna's love interest with a lot of depth and makes use of his talent to make mediocre dialogue much more interesting. The precocious and prodigious young poker expert is also an interesting character to follow, as he seems to get in to as much trouble as one can with drugs and women. To sum it all up, "The Card Player" gets at the base of personal obsession with games and thrill seeking. On a fast pace from the start, the film moves along, delivering interesting twists throughout. A nice contrast to Hollywood, it will have you craving a game of Internet Poker.