Hodges seems constrained by the material

There`s an unpleasant edge to this film which is compounded by a not very interesting narrative.

Jack Manfred, Clive Owen, is a would be novelist who was raised in South Africa and now lives in a pokey London flat with his girlfriend, Marion, Gina McKee, a former policewoman turned store detective. A morose and somewhat defeated character, Jack desperately needs work, and reluctantly allows his absent father to find him a job as croupier in a casino. Though Marion disapproves of his work, Jack - who had worked as a croupier back home in Africa - is pleased to discover how good he is, and he starts planning a novel, featuring a character called Jake, about the world of the casino. He also sleeps with Bella, Kate Hardie, a fellow employee, and finds himself involved - against all instructions - with one of the casino`s clients, a mysterious South African called Jani, Alex Kingston..You have to suspect that CROUPIER, which was completed 4 years ago, belongs, for good or ill, more to writer Paul Mayersberg than to director Mike Hodges. Mayersberg, a novelist, screenwriter and occasional director, has had an uneven career; for every MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH there was a EUREKA, both scripted for Nicolas Roeg but with very different results. Though CROUPIER is essentially a rather slight, even predictable, affair the over-written screenplay is heavy-handed and self important, and the voice-over narration, a device I invariably enjoy, simply doesn`t work. Director Mike Hodges has given us some fine films in the past, notably the original GET CARTER, but here he seems constrained by the material. Clive Owen`s Jack is a truly unsympathetic character, a self-obsessed loser who cheats on both his girlfriend and on his employer. There`s an unpleasant edge to this film which is compounded by a not very interesting narrative.Comments from Margaret PomeranzThe conceit of the monologue voice over of Jack`s fictional creation Jake is too self-consciously literary to sit well on this film which on a number of occasions seems rather arch about its own achievements. Dialogue is stilted to match some rather wooden performances and add to that mix a rather inaccessible central character and you find it hard to engender much interest in his adventures at the roulette wheel. David Mamet`s \"House of Games\" with which this film has been compared is vastly more interesting. The film does have a certain ironic style on occasions and certainly Clive Owen`s presence will attract many people who`ve seen his performances in so many British television series but a certain ennui set in with this member of the audience.