Croupier

Largely ignored on its original release back in August 1999, Mike Hodges' Croupier was a critical smash in the United States and apparently lead actor, Clive Owen, was within a whisker of a nomination for Best Actor at this year's Oscars. Thanks to this favourable publicity, the film is re-released and if you haven't encountered caught it so far, this is as good an opportunity as any. Clive Owen is Jack Manfred, a budding writer who, in the name of research, takes up a position in a London casino. Although he's given very strict rules of employment, Jack soon finds reasons and means to break them.

Hodges direction is crisp and thoughtful as are the performances of his actors, especially the splendid Owen. There's an ill-conceived attempt to neatly tie things up at the end of the movie too quickly and it could do with being 20 minutes longer to fill out some characters That aside, however, Croupier is a thoughtful discourse on the nature of addiction. Catch it.