Capturing on film a high-stakes gambler's inner workings, let alone a degenerate gambler with seemingly no bottom in which to bottom out, is tough for any filmmaker—and many have tried. But I’ll admit, seeing that filmmaker Edward Berger (Conclave, All Quiet on the Western Front, both of which won Oscars) was the guy helming Ballad of a Small Player (based on the novel by Lawrence Osborne), I grew hopeful. Throw in Colin Farrell as said gambler, Lord Doyle, and Tilda Swinton as private investigator Cynthia Blithe (who is pursuing Doyle for reasons I won’t go into here), and this film seems like it’s destined for greatness. But the best this overwrought drama can do is “pretty good most of the time” (put that on the poster).
We meet Doyle as he’s laying low in Macau, the gambling capital of the world, where he’s dangerously broke, has run up an insane hotel bill, and is spending all day and night gambling, drinking heavily, or both. With his last wad of cash, he wanders into a shady little casino to play against a deep pockets older woman called Grandma (Deanie Ip) at a game of baccarat, and she positively cleans his clock with a smile on her face. The woman running the game is Dao Ming (Fala Chen), and she offers Doyle a line of credit, which he rightly refuses because he knows it’s a scam and a way that off-the-strip casinos like this one make more money off of desperate people like him. At around the same time, Doyle meets Blithe, who is working for a third party to find Doyle and bring him back to the UK, where he (shockingly) owes someone a great deal of money (this cash was stolen, not borrowed).
At his core, Doyle (we find out around this point in the story that the “Lord” part is fully formed bullshit) is not so much a con artist in the traditional sense, but more of a master persuader. He can talk his way into or out of just about anything. He manages to negotiate with Blithe about paying the money back before she calls the authorities on him. He convinces Ming to stick with him spiritually (if not financially), and after a particularly bad night for Doyle, she takes him back to a small house she owns to recover. What follows is a sudden, unexpected influx of cash, a winning streak like no other, and Doyle eventually getting banned from all casinos because security believes he has a ghost attached to him that is influencing play in his favor.
Adapted by Rowan Joffe, Ballad of a Small Player thinks it’s about redemption, salvation, and the low road that must be travelled before either can be achieved. Farrell and Swinton are both quite good here, and Chen is a terrific discovery. For fans of Hong Kong cinema, Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs) shows up for a wonderful cameo. But in the end, I’m not sure the film amounts to much as an effective drama. I actually loved the unexpected ghost twist, but this is no ghost story in the way you’re used to, and when it’s revealed what that actually is, it’s one of the film’s only true gut-punch moments. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t fully understand the rules of baccarat, although it’s always pretty clear who is winning, and ultimately, it doesn’t really matter if the game makes sense. It’s a good-looking movie, but in the service of nothing particularly deep or thought provoking.
The is now streaming on Netflix.
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