Peter Harrison

This is a very, very strange, disturbing movie. The central character is, on the face of it, a professional card player whose motto, in his own words, is: ‘lose small, win small’. He travels from one convention to another, hooking up with very serious gamblers whose entire lives are obviously totally dominated by playing cards. Although played as an intensely controlled individual, the main character also looks for relationships to relieve his intense isolation. Against this foreground, a very dark, frightening world emerges. The main character was a full-time assistant torturer at Abu Ghraib, and we are shown horrific flashback scenes of appalling brutality. These appear and disappear very rapidly. We ‘re left asking ourselves, ‘Did I really see that?’ But, count on it, yes, you did. The contrast between the intensely controlled daily life of the card player and the horror of his past is extreme. This is the USA.