Complete credited cast: | |||
James Spader | ... | Jack Pozzi | |
Mandy Patinkin | ... | Jim Nashe | |
M. Emmet Walsh | ... | Calvin Murks | |
Charles Durning | ... | Bill Flower | |
Joel Grey | ... | Willy Stone | |
Samantha Mathis | ... | Tiffany | |
Chris Penn | ... | Floyd | |
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Pearl Jones | ... | Louise |
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Jordan Spainhour | ... | Floyd Jr. |
Paul Auster | ... | Driver |
Whilst traveling across America living off the money from a large inheritance, ex-fireman Nashe has a chance meeting with Pozzi, a professional gambler and card shark. Nashe agrees to fund the penniless Pozzi in a game of poker against two eccentric millionaires, Flower and Stone, in an attempt to regain some of his spent fortune. His gamble has unforeseen and bizarre consequences for both himself and Pozzi. This film is an almost exact translation of the novel by Paul Auster. Written by Stewart Kristiansen <cskjs@swan.ac.uk>
The Music of Chance is one of those movies in the "eclectic" section at your local video store, one that you pick up on that Thursday when your girlfriend is off on a trip and no one will go to the pub with you. One you wouldn't actually go out and rent to watch with others, lest they find out how pathetic your life is.
But once you get one of these movies home, you find it's absolutely gripping. Sure, it's actually a picture-novel--not purely a visual experience, obviously based on something. But you watch it. Then you watch it again, and listen more carefully. Then you return it, so that you can tell your friends that they really ought to see this movie, it's got that guy, you know, the fat guy, and this other guy, and it's about poker, and your friends ignore you, and think to themselves, "hope his girlfriend gets back soon--he's a wreck these days." But really, they should see the movie. But they don't. And the crushing loneliness and isolation of modern life weighs down on you all the more heavily.
*That* is what this movie is like.