Written and directed by Paul Schrader, The Card Counter follows William Tell, played by Oscar Isaac. He’s a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past.
Tell just wants to play cards, and his spartan existence on the casino trail shatters when he is Cirk, played by Tye Sheridan, approaches him. Cirk is a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel.
Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. He tries to gain backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, played by Tiffany Haddish.
“La Linda’s game is like pimping without the sex; she has a lot of personality and her job is to make money for her investors,” says Haddish. “I felt as a comedian — since my job is to tickle people’s souls and convince them to go on a journey with me as I tell them a story — that I could bring the necessary charisma and personality to get audiences aboard for this ride.”
“La Linda is vibrant, she has vitality, and she has a life of purpose. William sees all this and finds himself drawn to this strange little trio, including Cirk,” says Isaac. “They become a lifeline or surrogate family for him.”
Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio set their sights on winning the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. But keeping Cirk on the straight-and-narrow proves impossible, dragging Tell back into the darkness of his past.
“My aim is to create a crack in the viewer’s skull, opening up a rift between what they desire and expect of my characters and what they feel after spending time with them,” says Schrader. “How they make that adjustment is up to them, but to get the viewer engaged in this kind of conflict is what every artist seeks. It’s not so important what my viewers think, but that they do think.”
Source: Variety/IMDB/Production Notes
