A finely tuned and taut script may have been laid to waste here by careless, directoral miscues.
Philip (Vincent D'Onofrio) goes on a roulette winning streak in Las Vegas and discovers some hard lessons about faithfulness and betrayal. One of the central themes -- what happens to a person when he finds himself suddenly in the grips of material and financial wealth, and just as importantly, what happens to the recipient's so-called friends and acquaintances in relation to that recipient -- is worth conveying and, as a viewer, exploring in all its nuance and implications. The script certainly seems ready to achieve that -- not to mention there's a near-all-star cast to boot -- but in the hands of director Alex Cox, all the talent (both in terms of cast and script) seems to have been for naught. Cox directs with an uneven hand so that the movie lacks the tonal consistency it deserves. He also exhibits schmaltzy tendencies that move us away from the essence of the script -- it speaks volumes that the movie, which was originally titled "A Darker Purpose" (an acclaimed play by Wendy Riss, who also wrote the screenplay) got turned into a movie titled, well, "The Winner." One can't help but wonder then what would have become of this script if it had fallen into the right director's hands.
Philip (Vincent D'Onofrio) goes on a roulette winning streak in Las Vegas and discovers some hard lessons about faithfulness and betrayal. One of the central themes -- what happens to a person when he finds himself suddenly in the grips of material and financial wealth, and just as importantly, what happens to the recipient's so-called friends and acquaintances in relation to that recipient -- is worth conveying and, as a viewer, exploring in all its nuance and implications. The script certainly seems ready to achieve that -- not to mention there's a near-all-star cast to boot -- but in the hands of director Alex Cox, all the talent (both in terms of cast and script) seems to have been for naught. Cox directs with an uneven hand so that the movie lacks the tonal consistency it deserves. He also exhibits schmaltzy tendencies that move us away from the essence of the script -- it speaks volumes that the movie, which was originally titled "A Darker Purpose" (an acclaimed play by Wendy Riss, who also wrote the screenplay) got turned into a movie titled, well, "The Winner." One can't help but wonder then what would have become of this script if it had fallen into the right director's hands.