By John Corrado
Ballad of a Small Player is the latest film from German director Edward Berger, who broke out in a big way and became an Oscar heavyweight with his past two films Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front. Berger’s latest, a Macau-set gambling film, can’t live up to his previous two. But it still looks great.
Colin Farrell stars in the film as Lord Doyle, a gambling addict struggling to pay off his debts. When we meet him, he’s on a bender in Macau, where he is trying to lay low. But Doyle has only a few days to pay up. Throughout this time, he encounters two women; Dao Ming (Fala Chen), an enchanting young woman at the casino who offers to help relieve his debts, and Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton), a mysterious figure who begins following him.
Doyle has a number of character tics, from his lucky yellow gloves to the business he does with peaking under cards at the table, and Farrell brings him to life with a very committed performance. The Irish actor tears through this role, often sweating or shaking from alcohol. It’s a case of an actor elevating material.
The film, which is based on a novel by Lawrence Osborne that was adapted for the screen by Rowan Joffe, doesn’t really add up to more than an exercise in style over substance. The whole thing can feel a bit hollow, with the story and character study not really going that deep. But Ballad of a Small Player still has enough elements going for it to be worth a look.
Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front cinematographer James Friend shoots the heck out of it. The neon-soaked look of the film, which is set in the days leading up to Macau’s festival of the dead, certainly evokes a mood. We also get another thunderous score by Oscar-winning All Quiet composer Volker Bertelmann, which rattles through the film.
The Joy of Movies 