Ballad of a Small Player Review

A Simple Gambling Fable Nearly Overwhelmed by Maximalist Style

By: Marc Kozak

Ballad of a Small Player

A Simple Gambling Fable Nearly Overwhelmed by Maximalist Style

By: Marc Kozak

At its heart, Edward Berger's "Ballad of a Small Player" is a simple and familiar tale, one of a down-on-his-luck gambling addict who learns that there's more to life than just one big score. The story, based on a 2014 novel by Lawrence Osborne, is pleasant enough to keep your interest but holds few surprises, even accounting for a small streak of the supernatural. What's really remarkable is that Berger and his team have treated the humble screenplay like it's the biggest of big-budget action blockbusters, shooting each scene with enough stylistic bombast to make Michael Bay blush. Each frame is meticulously staged and saturated like it's destined for Instagram. The sumptuous production design makes Macau seem like heaven on Earth, and the soundtrack blares over any kind of movement like it's the introduction of a Marvel villain. And yet, in another timeline, this could have easily been a quiet, somber indie drama.

It's tempting to call this a classic case of style over substance (and many will), but I kind of liked Berger's sense of heightened drama. He used a similar tactic to great effect in "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Conclave," two relatively simple stories elevated by filmmaking panache. Even so, there isn't quite enough narrative meat on the bones for Berger to fully get away with it this time, but his stylistic hyperactivity certainly prevents things from ever getting dull.

Colin Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a struggling compulsive gambler making his way through the high-roller rooms of Macau's casinos, racking up dangerous debts and running out of last chances. "Lord Doyle" is a flimsy persona that everyone can see through, an ill-fitting mask trying to conceal the hopeless wannabe player underneath. He is a sweaty, anxious mess of man who has severely overestimated his mystique and charm, clinging to his fake posh accent and phony Savile Row gloves with all of the remaining pride he has left. He is haunted throughout the casino by Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton), a private investigator who knows who he really is and has come to put an end to the party.

" Berger has treated this humble screenplay like it's the biggest of big-budget action blockbusters, shooting each scene with enough stylistic bombast to make Michael Bay blush.  "

Swinton's character, who is styled like someone straight out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," is another example of Berger's "more is more" strategy, an incredibly conspicuous figure in an already conspicuous setting, more of a colorful piece of set dressing than any real threat as a force of the law. She ends up giving Doyle a few days to pay his debts, which sets up a classic opportunity for one last big score, if only Doyle can find a creditor crazy enough to front him the money.

As luck would have it, he attracts the attention of casino hostess and back-alley creditor Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a mysterious and beautiful woman who senses a kindred spirit in Doyle. She is going through her own moral crisis, as her usual clientele are typically other desperate gamblers at the end of their ropes, the most recent of whom have started turning up dead. She ends up somewhat inexplicably falling for Doyle and is reluctant to give him the money he's asking for, begging him to stop gambling and embrace a simpler life away from the lights and sounds of the casino.

Unfortunately, Doyle just can't help himself from taking stupid risk after stupid risk, love be damned. He is very much the gweilo — a Cantonese term for white foreigners meaning “hungry ghost" — a walking dead man with an insatiable appetite for riches. When Doyle makes a tragic choice to abuse the help offered by Dao Ming, he can see himself literally turning into a bestial specter of excess, his own reflection roaring with a cartoonishly open mouth. His descent is both hard to watch and kind of funny, mostly due to Berger's incredibly self-serious melodramatics.

Farrell thankfully plays Doyle in a fairly grounded fashion, mostly keeping away from the kind of frenzied overacting that other actors certainly would be tempted to use in this setting. He imbues Doyle with a believable sense of anxious energy, jittery and sweaty with no real sense of confidence, but still naturally charming enough walk amongst the elites in the casino. His unease and desperation are clear as day on his face, and the actor clearly did the work to convincingly play such a character.

The final act is a familiar bit of magical cliché that ties a neat bow on things without really feeling all that satisfying. Doyle is pitiable, sure, but he's not exactly someone we're actively rooting for to pull off some kind of heroic, last-minute save. Berger attempts to portray Doyle's journey as a monumental struggle for his immortal soul, an operatic tragedy on par with the most famous literary characters. But really, this is a very pathetic man who has committed some very serious crimes, and it's a bit hard to swallow where his character ends up in the final moments.

I am a sucker for Berger's flashy, maximalist style, and as such, I enjoyed it a tad more than other critics seem to. I would much rather a filmmaker be a stylistic showoff than not; this is a visual medium, after all. There are limits, of course, and "Ballad of a Small Player" surely pushes up against them, if not smashes right through them. Here's hoping Berger's next project has a script that fits a little better with his larger-than-life style.