The Card Player
The Card Player | |
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![]() Italian theatrical poster
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Directed by | Dario Argento |
Produced by | Dario Argento Claudio Argento |
Written by | Jay Benedict Phoebe Scholfield |
Screenplay by | Dario Argento Franco Ferrini |
Story by | Dario Argento Franco Ferrini |
Starring | Stefania Rocca Liam Cunningham Silvio Muccino Verra Gemma |
Music by | Claudio Simonetti |
Cinematography | Benoît Debie |
Edited by | Walter Fasano |
Distributed by | Medusa Produzione |
Release dates
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2 January 2004 |
Running time
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103 min. |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian English |
Budget | €2,000,000 (estimated) |
Box office | €2,713,882 (Italy; as of 18 January 2004) |
The Card Player (Italian: Il cartaio) is a 2004 giallo film directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Stefania Rocca and Liam Cunningham and is Argento's second giallo feature of the decade (following Sleepless).
The film features a brief role by Fiore Argento, the director's eldest daughter. She had previously appeared in her father's films Phenomena and Demons.
Plot
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. The film centers around a serial killer known as "The Card Player", who is kidnapping young women in Rome. Using a webcam set-up, the killer challenges the police by forcing them to play hands of Internet poker. If the police lose, the kidnapped victim is tortured and murdered on-screen. When a British tourist is among the girls murdered, policeman John Brennan (Cunningham) is assigned the case and quickly teams up with Italian detective Anna Mari (Rocca). The duo have their work cut out for them when the Police Chief's daughter (Argento) becomes the killer's latest kidnapping victim.
Cast
- Stefania Rocca as Anna Mari
- Liam Cunningham as John Brennan
- Silvio Muccino as Remo
- Adalberto Maria Merli as the Police Commissioner
- Fiore Argento as Lucia Marini
- Cosimo Fusco as Berardelli
- Mia Benedetta as Francesca
- Giovanni Visentin as C.I.D. Chief
- Verra Gemma as Third Victim
Critical reception
The Card Player received a negative response from critics. The film has an approval rating of 20% on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on ten reviews.[1] The New York Times wrote, "The Card Player [...] doesn't break the unhappy streak of his [Argento's] later films. Though it's based on a promisingly outrageous premise [...] the film unfolds as a tired, thoroughly conventional police procedural that might as well be titled CSI: Roma."[2] AllMovie's review was unfavorable, writing, "The Card Player offers a fair amount of suspense and at least one memorable set piece, but for those even remotely familiar with Argento's canon, there's the feeling that it's all been done before – and handled with much more style and confidence."[3]
References
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External links
- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). The Card Player at IMDb
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- Articles using small message boxes
- 2004 films
- Italian-language films
- English-language films
- Italian films
- 2004 horror films
- Giallo films
- Film scores by Claudio Simonetti
- Police detective films
- Films directed by Dario Argento
- Serial killer films
- 2000s mystery films
- 2000s crime thriller films
- Snuff films in fiction
- 2000s Italian film stubs
- Crime thriller film stubs