The Card Counter review – Paul Schrader thriller hits a royal flush

How do you solve a problem like Paul Schrader? With such an inconsistent back catalogue of masterpieces and flops, one merely hopes for the best when sitting down with one of his tortured men. But for anyone afraid that First Reformed was a fluke of brilliance in his late-career filmography, think again: revenge thriller The Card Counter is yet another stunning exercise in restraint made all the more fascinating by its queasy ethics and arresting visual language.

William Tillich (Oscar Isaac) was once a special ops soldier during the Iraq War before being incarcerated for a decade due to an abuse of power. Upon release, he renames himself William Tell and whiles away his days as a professional poker player, gambling more to pass the time than in search of a big win. He keeps a low profile as he journeys from drab motel to drab motel, but the human rights atrocities he participated in during his days torturing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison continue to haunt him long after his sentence has been served.

After a chance meeting with Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a vengeful twentysomething whose troubled father also worked in the prison, William is drawn into a scheme to get back at Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe), a brutal erstwhile commander who managed to shirk criminal charges. Determined to protect Cirk from a path of violence, William decides to work with gambling agent La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) to earn enough money to put the younger man on the right path.

Penance, guilt, absolution, atonement: these are all bargaining chips in Schrader’s cinematic language, and once again, he’s all in. The veteran director has described many of his films as “a man alone in a room, wearing a mask, waiting for something to happen.” Isaac took this literally during preparation, spending three days rehearsing scenes while wearing a mask, as well as training with a cardistry expert and reading books on the corporeal manifestation of traumatic stress. The attention to detail with nuances of body language is evident, whether it’s a quivering finger unveiling a poker hand, a laboured blink, a flirtatious upturn of the lips. Passion flickers behind his long-dead eyes when he meets La Linda and Cirk, an imperceptible awakening that – this is a Schrader flick, after all – will ultimately be impeded by those niggling demons.

Having written a monograph on transcendental style in film and deployed the technique’s visual austerity in First Reformed, Schrader continues to depict a cold and unfeeling world here. Static frames see Isaac as a shadow in a world of colour, monochromatic in his grey clothes and aloof among the kitschy glow of Atlantic City. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club frontman Robert Levon Been contributes the film’s original score, an outstanding composition that deserves to be heard on the best surround sound system possible. Haunting incantations, like the repeating “in my lonesome aberration,” pair with ruminating beats and thudding bass.

In stomach-knotting torture scenes, Schrader thrusts us down a series of squalid corridors that are warped to make us feel sick, as cinematographer Alexander Dynan utilises VR technology to flatten the screen and pull the viewer in, making them feel like participants in the unthinkable. These scenes are difficult to watch and extremely upsetting, but imperative in understanding William’s self-destructive actions. It’s ultimately irrelevant whether our protagonist deserves empathy or not. If people are able to understand that a director does not need to agree with or endorse the actions of its characters, audiences should be able to enjoy this fascinating deep-dive into a broken psyche.

Anyone familiar with the story of folk hero William Tell may be able to guess the ending, involving a reckoning with a senior tyrannical force. But the journey to the finishing line is so satisfying, so rich in cinematic mastery, so full of subtleties to savour, that the ending isn’t all that important. With outstanding, layered performances from Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in particular, The Card Counter is Schrader at his most enthralling, and proof that the septuagenarian director still has a magic touch.

The Card Counter was screened as part of the Venice Film Festival 2021. It is released in UK cinemas on 5 November.