Wild Card
                                                                                                      
Director: Simon West
Year: 2015
Rating: 6.0
I had started this film two times previously but on both occasions had turned it off only a few minutes in when the character Nick played by Jason Statham is a complete dick by trying to pick a fight with a much smaller man and take his girl (Sofia Vergara, her profile shot is inspiring). I didn't want to see Statham as a jerk. He has become one of my go to actors for enjoyable kill the bad guys films. This time, I went a minute deeper into the film and the little guy beats up Nick and you know it is a set-up to impress the girl. Vergara is worth impressing and disappears much too quickly from the film. Statham of course once again plays an honorable tough guy who can take a punch and give three in return. My kind of film.



This is based on a novel by William Goldman (Marathon Man, The Princess Bride) and was adapted previously into a Burt Reynolds film titled Heat (same as the book) in 1986. I have to my surprise not seen that since I am a Reynolds fan, but I gather this film follows the Reynolds film quite closely. But this being made 30 years later, the violence has been ratcheted up. The film wasn't quite what I expected. Even though there are three action set pieces, this is more a character study of Nick and Las Vegas.



Nick is part of Vegas. He has it in his blood stream. It has turned him into a loser making rent by allowing himself to be beaten up or hiring out as a bodyguard to high rollers passing through town. He knows every one from the maids to the cocktail waitresses to the gangsters. Even the rats tip their hats. He hates the town, but can't leave. Addicted to the flash, the fake, black jack tables, the action. A working girl who he has known since she was a little girl is lured into a hotel suite and raped and brutalized by the boss and two large henchman. She asks for his help to get her pound of flesh. Literally. The boss (Milo Ventimiglia) is connected to the mafia, but fuck, you owe her and scumbags deserve what they get. Cameos from Jason Alexander, Anne Heche and Stanley Tucci.