By Marc S. Sanders
James Caan is Axel Freed, The Gambler, and when the film starts it shows the main character figuratively at the bottom of a very deep hole. From this point on, he’s always looking at its great endless height above; a depth so low or a height so high, that there’s no crawling out of this trap. No matter the opportunities that rescue Axel from a $44,000 debt to some bookies, he’ll never allow himself to be saved.
The autobiographical inspiration of James Toback’s first screenplay is hardly entertaining, but it held my attention all the way through. Axel is a well-educated literature professor and an expert on Dostoyevsky but he’s entirely foolhardy. A parallel inspiration comes from the author’s novella The Gambler.
I dunno. Whether it’s 1974 or 2024, if I’m told I owe forty-four grand to someone who will otherwise break my legs and then who knows what else, I’d be terrified with fear. Axel Freed seems to brush off his dilemma as he cruises through the city in his Mustang convertible. To him, this is just the current setback of the week. Nothing big. He’s been in worse situations. At least that’s what he tells himself. Axel swallows some pride and asks his mother (Jacqueline Brooks) for a loan, and she has to go through her own hoops to scrounge up the funds. Look for an early appearance from James Woods as an unsympathetic banker. Once mother’s monies are in hand though, Axel opts for a different route than to wipe his debt clean. Therein lies the anchoring burden of gambling addiction.
Toback’s script, directed by Karel Reisz, is not so much about a story as it is about living with overwhelming compulsion. He writes good dialogue performed with apathy by Caan. It’s not about winning. It’s about the thrill of possibly losing the money he’s got in hand.
Once Axel obtains money, he ventures off to Vegas feeling sure that he will double what he’s got and still manage to pay off this huge debt. The brilliance of the film is that it had me tricked as Axel marathons through victory at every table while also feeling confident on three college basketball games that seem to be moving in his favor. I was not sure if I was looking at a hero or a despairing loser during this sequence. Reisz convinces me that it can go either way for Axel with his girlfriend, Billie (Lauren Hutton) in tow.
As many films, books, and programs that I’ve encountered focusing on gambling and the addiction it musters, I feel confident I know the outcome of the piece. What sets The Gambler apart though is the realistic nature of what this kind of craving does to a person. It depicts the victim as in denial, rejoicing when he dodges bullets, thinking he’s invincible. The film demonstrates how those close to Axel Freed respond to his mounting dilemmas, but also how they are affected. It’s inclusive not only of his Billie, his mother, his self-made millionaire grandfather, or even his main bookie (Paul Sorvino), but an admiring student of his as well.
There are scenes that I could see how they are going to play out as soon as they begin. I’m sorry but when I see tough guy character actors like Burt Young and Vic Tayback enter a story like this, I know something, or someone, is about to endure some damage and walk away feeling terribly threatened. Still, I’d be complaining if Toback excised moments like this from his screenplay.
The ending left me feeling a little perplexed as to if it really belongs here. It’s not a happy ending but seemed to come out of nowhere and I questioned its relevance against everything else that was seen before.
The strength of The Gambler lies in the honesty of James Toback’s script and the performance of James Caan. The film belongs exclusively to Caan and his character, with the others entering the frame when they are called upon for a cause and effect of Axel’s actions and decisions. There’s nothing to celebrate in a hard drama like this, but I applaud the film’s will to uphold a genuine truth of how gambling addiction leaves behind a crippling life for those caught in continuing temptation.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 