The Card Counter (2021)

Paul Schrader, the New Hollywood master portrayer of psycho sexual masculinity gone awry, is back with his latest provocation The Card Counter (2021). Oscar Isaac is William Tell, a small time poker player who always plays for stakes just small enough to not draw a lot of attention to himself. He has quietly been amassing a fortune, however, as he clearly has a talent for the game and for spotting his surname in the eyes of his opponents. Either way, Tell has flown under the radar thus far, but that all changes when a representative for a group of high money investors named La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) approaches William to let him know that her bosses want to stake him to play in bigger money, higher stakes games. William tells that he needs to think about the offer but things really start to fall apart for him when a young man named Cirk (Tye Sheridan) recognizes Tell as a former soldier who was tried and convicted for war crimes in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Cirk's father was convicted alongside Tell and later took his own life, so Cirk wants access to their commanding officer Major John Gordo (Willem Dafoe), who faced few charges compared with the soldiers like William and Cirk's father. While the hyper masculine signature Schrader stuff is on full display in this flick, the skin of his 70s and 80s stuff isn't here. Tiffany Haddish keeps her bra on for a sex scene with Oscar Isaac, which is disappointing and undeniably sexy all at the same time!