Mark Wahlberg is always Mark Wahlberg. In "The Gambler," he plays Jim Bennett, a literature professor who stands on stage and screams just like Mark Wahlberg. It is a role he wasn't born to play. It fits like a broken belt. Bennett is also a habitual gambler and resident douchebag of the underground Los Angeles gambling scene. Much more Wahlberg. The ticking clock is set when he falls into debt with the wrong people.
"You owe me $240,000," one of them tells him at the beginning of the movie, "and I want it in seven days." The problem with "The Gambler" is that we're more interested in seeing Bennett fail to get the money. That we never get to see those broken bones and bleeding ears is the great tragedy of the movie.
Usually it's not hard to find a few positives in a turdy movie, and "The Gambler" has a few. John Goodman is good as one of the hammy criminals. He plays him as a monster with many sides; it just so happens Bennett is risking a trip to the wrong one. Michael Kenneth Williams (of "The Wire" fame) is always a pleasure to see. And it's nice to see Brie Larson get work, even if she's playing a one-dimensionally sexy/wholesome student in whom Bennett can find redemption. Rupert Wyatt (director of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes") gives the gambling scenes real tension.
Those are what work, and sort-of work. It's apparent from the onset, though, that there's not much else to recommend. Every scene is filled with self-importance. For instance, the opening lecture scene features Bennett delivering a class lecture that boils down to "you're awesome or you're not." It's supposed to establish Bennett's all-or-nothing narcissism, but it feels endless. Casting Wahlberg as a literature professor ... I can't get over it. And having him yell about how he was the only person to ever reach a particular conclusion about Camus' "The Stranger?" That's a choice.
It's hard to tell if that's a result of the screenplay by William Monahan ("The Departed") or just Wahlberg's lack of likability and range that sinks the movie, but both definitely contribute. We learn that Bennett is the prodigious spawn of a fabulously wealthy L.A. family, as well as that he experienced early success with a hit novel and has since failed to produce another. Boiled down, Bennett is a rich man whose only motivation is losing everything because he has nothing to lose. His fundamental flaw is his own boring self-importance.
Just like "The Gambler."