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Croupier (1998) 
 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159382/

Croupier is a 1998 film starring Clive Owen as a croupier. Directed by Mike Hodges, the film was released by Image Entertainment on DVD in the USA, and Alliance Atlantis in Canada. Though intended as a feature film, it was shown on television in North America. It was also initially released in cinemas and drew a steady audience at the box office, attracting a strong critical following in North America, and helping to launch Clive Owen's acting career there.

  Clive Owen  ...  Jack Manfred  
  Nick Reding  ...  Giles Cremorne  
  Nicholas Ball  ...  Jack Snr.  
  Alexander Morton  ...  David Reynolds  
  Barnaby Kay  ...  Car Dealer  
  Gina McKee  ...  Marion Nell  
  John Radcliffe  ...  Barber  
  Sheila Whitfield  ...  Manicurist  
  David Hamilton  ...  Casino Supervisor  
  Carol Davis  ...  Table Supervisor  
  Eddie Osei  ...  West Indian Punter  
  Doremy Vernon  ...  Woman I  
  Claudine Carter  ...  Woman II  
  Ursula Alberts  ...  Madame Claude  
  Neville Phillips  ...  White Haired Man  

Croupier was disqualified from the Academy Awards after it was shown on Dutch television.

The film has been classified as neo-noir. It uses interior monologues in the style of many early noir detective films.

The existentialist desire to be self-created and therefore master of one’s fate informs Croupier, the fruit of Mike Hodges’ collaboration with screenwriter Paul Mayersberg who had developed the script over a number of years.

Mayersberg was strongly influenced by European existentialist noir, notably Robert Bresson and Jean-Pierre Melville with their sense of a contingent universe in which actions are random and inexplicable. It also draws on American noir, especially Double Indemnity (1944) and Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950). The name of its heroine Marion is taken from Hitchcock’s Psycho, while its anti-hero, Jack Manfred, alludes to Byron’s Count Manfred, one of the central figures in English Gothic literature. This rich cultural heritage is molded into a highly contemporary tale that focuses on would-be writer, Jack (Clive Owen), searching for his subject and his fictional hero, and through them his true identity. Everything changes when, at the behest of his gambler father, Jack resumes his old profession of croupier, returning to a subterranean noir world of tawdry glamour, shimmering surfaces and distorting reflections, a world obsessed with money and chance: gambling has often been a handy metaphor for an existentialist view of life. In creating the casino where much of the action takes place, production designer Jon Bunker commented: ‘Mike [Hodges] wanted to convey a sense of purgatory so we made the walls out of mirrors, which gives a sense of the casino extending forever. It also has the effect that when Jack enters the casino, the reflection of the mirror conveys the idea of him walking away from himself.’ This separation of character and consciousness is reinforced by Croupier’s unconventional use of voice-over. Jack’s voice-over is neither confessional nor a device to expound the plot, but a detached, third person commentary on his actions. Owen was asked to learn the voice-over so that he played the scenes as if he was responding to his own thoughts. Its mode is speculative, allowing Jack to invoke the great existential questions: What matters? What life’s about? Who am I? As Mayersberg remarked, its effect is to efface characterization altogether making Croupier the story of a nobody, but one who is also Everyman.

As Jack rediscovers the fascination of being a croupier, cool, professional, detached and in control, he gradually transmutes into his Doppelgänger Jake – symbolised as he redyes his bleached blond hair to its natural black – who understands that the object of life is to ‘fuck the world over’. Jake is the ideal protagonist for Jack’s novel I, Croupier, which becomes a number 1 bestseller in a world fascinated by ruthless greed. For Hodges, Jake is a contemporary figure, the product of a post-Thatcherite world of casualised labour where everyone is on his own, struggling to succeed and caught up in forces they cannot control. It is Jake who is prepared to collude in the scheme of femme fatale Jani (Alex Kingston) to rob the casino, and when his girlfriend Marion (Gina McKee) – who wants him to remain the blond nice guy, to remain her romanticized image of the struggling author – is killed by a hit and run driver, a random act whose meaning is unclear, Jack’s conscience dies with her. Stripped of illusions, Jake settles down with worldly fellow croupier and ex-prostitute Bella (Kate Hardie), who accepts him as he is, his ruthlessness, violence and self-centredness. Thinking he is now in control of his life, Jake dedicates himself to his self-created wholeness unlike the sad gamblers who play at his table, but in a final irony, he learns that Jani was his father’s mistress and he was therefore a mere pawn in his father’s clever game.

A throwback to the early 60s in style but with contemporary points of view, Croupier is seemingly about the writer/croupier metaphor, but it’s morally and psychologivcally about Jack’s character. It’s as if Clive Owen was a reincarnation of Alain Delon or a Jean Paul Belmondo and his world view was being offered and opened up to us through the combination of the setting and his inner conflicts. While the film has a plot and generates genuine tension with that, it is ultimately satisfying for its character insights – and not only Jack’s. Gina McKee is again tremendously effective in creating a nuanced, fascinating character with great strengths and needs, drawing empathy from us with every glance. Mike Hodges sets up the time and place of the story with ease, and slips us seamlessly into the London casino milieu. Attention to detail in things like extras casting pays off well, and the narration adds a vital inner voice that completes the cinematic task. Entertaining and filmic, Croupier is a highly accessible mix of light and noir.

Croupier is astonishing. A thriller, a mystery, a story of duality; it's stylish, compelling and filled with psychological edge and surprise. Cleverly structured with a voice-over narration that reflects conscience, we are sucked into the ever-spinning world of gambling where the odds are always against us. It's not about winning, but about being in control. A multi-layered tale of intrigue and character revelation, Mike Hodges' measured direction and Paul Mayersberg's cleverly structured script deliver a brilliant mix of edgy story telling. Rich in complexity and intelligence, this is a story about obsession. There's a constant undercurrent of uncertainty throughout, and as the protagonist finds his way through the maze of surrounding characters, we almost feel as though we need to hold our breath. Clive Owen gives an illustrious performance that dazzles, intrigues, shocks and charms. Owen has the ability to reveal everything and nothing all at once. Charismatic with a sense of mystery, he creates a very real and exciting character; he is James Bond in a tux and his vodka is definitely not shaken or stirred. All the cast is terrific: Gina McKee, Kate Hardie, and Alex Kingston as the three women that impact on Jack's life. Croupier is a winner, an original and mesmerising spin of the roulette wheel that deals up some highly unexpected cards.

A mannered parable about solipsism disguised as a hardboiled crime story: the minimal violence is mainly kept off screen, while Jack's voiceover narration, supposedly part of a novel he's writing, suggests that much of the action may be unfolding inside his head. Jack's two jobs are suggestive metaphors for each other - both writers and croupiers can be seen as voyeurs, manipulating the fates of others while remaining passive and detached. Both professions also call for a certain virtuosity: among the best things in Croupier are the close-up sequences, presumably using a body double, where Jack's fingers show off their acrobatic skill, shuffling cards or juggling counters at high speed. Embodied by Craig Owen as a cadaverous dandy in the Jude Law mold, Jack presides over the blackjack table with impeccable style and secret contempt. Gamblers are born losers, he figures, while as a croupier the odds will always be on his side... It's the misguided confidence of a classic fall guy, yet the director, Mike Hodges, seems to admire and share Jack's chilly view of humanity. A flashy but never expansive stylist, Hodges shows a liking for hard reflective surfaces and sharp metallic noises, from the clatter of gambling chips on a table to the yelps of a brainless upper-class couple bonking in the next room. This impassive crispness, tied to the pulp metaphysics of Paul Maylesberg's script, occasionally suggests a cynical B-movie variation on Robert Bresson's Pickpocket - another quasi-thriller about a solitary, amoral hero whose virtuso sleight-of-hand skills can't save him from himself. Needless to say, Hodges and Maylesberg don't share Bresson's interest in redemption, but I was hoping they'd manage to tie the plot threads together more convincingly: the ending is far-fetched and unsatisfying by any standards. Not a major film by any means, but if you're interested in eccentric, low-key thrillers, perhaps worth checking out.