Card Player, The (Il Cartaio)By Attic Girl
While trying to trace a missing person, police detective Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca) is contacted by a serial killer, challenging the police to play an online game of video poker.The stakes are high. The madman has kidnapped a British tourist, and has her bound and gagged, visible online through a web cam. Each time the police lose a hand, the victim loses a body part, if the police lose the whole game, the girl is killed, otherwise she is set free.
When police chief Marini (Antonio Cantafora) refuses to play the sick game, the cops witness the assassin using an X-Acto knife to slit the young woman’s throat.
Former Irish policeman John Brennan (Liam Cunningham) is brought in on the case. As a forensic expert, he’s bright at his job and a valuable addition to the team. More young women are kidnapped, and the police begin to play against ‘The Card Player’. Unfortunately they are unable to win and the victims are inevitably murdered, their corpses washing ashore days later.Anna plunges into the murky world of underground gambling and stumbles on Remo (Silvio Muccino) a young poker wiz who reluctantly takes on the challenge to join her team. When chief Marini’s own daughter (played by Argento’s daughter Fiore) gets in the killer’s clutches the pressure is on...
Fans of the Italian horror maestro who expect the usual splatterfest will be disappointed. The knife murders are kept almost entirely offscreen. Their severity is only reflected through the reactions of the stunned cops watching and the screaming of the victims. But honestly, the sequence in which John repeatedly replays a sound file of one victim’s last moments is quite harrowing and far more powerful than anything visually offered.
Gore fans get some gross autopsy footage when John examines washed-up bodies with their throats slit, the cadavers stunningly realized by Italian FX artist Sergio Stivaletti.
What really annoyed me in this film is the dialogue. Especially the lines of some crucial supporting players are absolutely poor and laughable. Most of the actors speak English throughout, but some of the performances are terribly dubbed. Cunningham acts solid and natural and Rocca makes Anna strong and experienced enough to be believable but unfortunately she struggles with her English and comes off as a little stiff.
The idea behind the plot isn’t that bad and the pace is fluent, but there’s a complete lack of tension and suspense. From early on it’s obvious to figure out the killer’s identity and often the plot turns are too predictable. One standout sequence though, when Anna is stalked by the killer inside her apartment, but the movie should have had more of these moments to make it a good one.The Card Player is considered the most mainstream film of Argento’s career and I’m afraid this giallo thriller doesn’t measure up to his masterworks. And please, could someone explain to me what the epilogue was all about?
DFW recently released The Cardplayer and is now avaible at every DVD store
