I'd braced myself for the worst before watching this, so was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't as atrocious as I'd feared. Far from Argento's best work, and as others have said it does feel more like a TV show than a movie. Adjust your expectations accordingly and it might not be so bad an experience.

As strange as it sounds: The card player is not the worst of Argentos new film. But yeah, it's really, really bad.

Unfortunately the worst Argento film I have seen so far, quite convoluted with a lack of pace, it dragged often and I didn't care enough about the characters to be bothered about what happened to them.

Check out the review soon on my blog:
horrorqueenreviews.blogspot.co.uk/

I'd braced myself for the worst before watching this, so was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't as atrocious as I'd feared. Far from Argento's best work, and as others have said it does feel more like a TV show than a movie. Adjust your expectations accordingly and it might not be so bad an experience.

How did argento lose it?

The initial premise is bearable and icredibly straightforward, but the lighthearted glee at the cop`s victories at cards just throw any sense of tension out of the window. The whole thing has a cheap TV serial vibe about it, and the final outcome, is hardly a shock to the viewer.

I do try and watch argento`s recent output in the hope he will return to past glories, but it just seems its not going to happen.

As strange as it sounds: The card player is not the worst of Argentos new film. But yeah, it's really, really bad.

Liebes Tagebuch...
Wohl tatsächlich der bislang schwächste Film von Dario Argento. Ich glaube auch nicht, daß er großartig spannender oder besser wird, wenn man mit den Regeln des Online-Pokers vertraut ist, was wohl zu großen Teilen daran liegt, daß dieses Internet-Spiel absolut unglaubwürdig gestaltet wurde (was in Sachen Computergeschichten in Filmen leider sehr oft der Fall ist und hier voll und ganz bestätigt wird).

Von den unsinnigen, fast schon unfreiwillig komischen Pokerspielereien mal abgesehen, ist der Rest des Filmes quasi als Argento auf Sparflamme zu betrachten, vielleicht auch weil er sehr geradlinig in Szene gesetzt wurde. In der zweiten Hälfte gibt es manch einen netten Einfall und diverse Spannungshöhepunkte. All das ist aber nur ein Echo von vergangenen Zeiten. Auch wenn viele auf fast alles schimpfen, was von Argento nach „The Stendhal Syndrom“ kam, ist „The Cardplayer“ für mich nur ein einmaliger Ausrutscher.

Sonntag, 13.12.2009/16:00 - 17:40 Uhr (zum dritten Mal gesehen)

Synopsis from IMDb: A Rome policewoman teams up with a British Interpol agent to find a crafty serial killer whom plays a taunting game of cat-and-mouse with the police by abducting and killing young women and showing it over an Internet webcam.

During games of Poker. They forgot that bit. Following 2001's Sleepless, Argento's next film was originally conceived as a sequel to his 90's film The Stendhal Syndrome and was to star his daughter Asia (reprising her role from Stendhal) and French auteur Mathieu Kassovitz, both dropped out to work on other projects (presumably after reading the script) and the film was recast. With some frankly awful re-dubbing, cheesy computerised Poker games and massively overplayed and cliched set-pieces, the film pretty much rips up Argento's reputation and uses it for kitty litter. If you've only seen this film, forget it exists and watch a better Argento. If you've never seen it, congratulate yourself for being awesome at picking films.

Dario, what went wrong!?

Not terrible but certainly something of a disappointment despite having some fine moments. The main problems seem to be, lack of finance, mediocre script and far too much action at a police station with too many policemen watching the internet poker game. Worth seeing but no treasure.

More late-period Argento bunk involves a killer that plays online video poker against the police for his kidnapped victim’s lives. The "who" of the film's whodunnit is terribly predictably, and the film falters when it’s not showing the video poker scenes, which are (sadly) the most interesting aspect of this production.