By Brian Susbielles

Edward Berger has quickly become an exciting director to watch with the success of Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front. He’s deftly dived into the secret world of power by any means mixed with the geopolitics and gone into various locations consolidated in one place. Now, his next movie is in Macau, the Monaco of the East, and the “gambling capital in the world” because the amount they make towers over Las Vegas and other cities. Big rollers live there and it’s certainly no place for a small-time con man, unless you are a total degenerate gambler to run from your debts, only to find yourself seriously behind the eight-ball and one roll is all it takes to save you…or kill you.

This is how we meet Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell), who is hiding from creditors looking for the thousands of dollars he has swindled back in the UK or else face arrest. But he keeps digging himself a bigger hole with his all-in bets and losses playing his favorite game, baccarat, and he can’t pay the bills for the hotels and restaurants. Then, he gets another unwelcome visitor with a British private detective (Tilda Swinton) who was hired by the people Doyle is running from and tells him he’s got 24 hours to pay it all back or he will be arrested. This time, Doyle can’t talk – or fake his death – his way out, the walls are moving in, and he is going to be sweating it out like Adam Sandler did in Uncut Gems.

But Small Player, although a solid thriller, is short of how brilliant the Safdie brothers’ film was. Farrell is a crazed man with time against him and witnesses first hand what happens to people who are in debt and can’t pay it back. It’s not a pretty sight, but he gets some help with a casino employee, Dao (Fala Chen), who is also a money-lender, risking her own neck too. She is taken with Doyle, aware of his issues, and he sees as a godsend and a beautiful woman he wants to eventually slow down with when he pays his debts back. He has another foil in Adrian (Alex Jennings), a dapper Brit living in Macao who knows Doyle’s story and warns him that the stress of winning to clear the debts will kill him faster than losing if he doesn’t know how to disconnect emotionally. 

Reteaming with his Oscar-winning cinematographer, James Friend, Berger keeps the film visually striking with the neon lights glowing Macau’s sky and Nick Emerson’s editing tightly every flip of the card and every chip being pushed in. But Rowan Joffe’s script, based on Lawrence Osbourne’s novel, fails to keep the pace up going into the second half of the film, which is where Berger’s technical skills help save the film from completely collapsing. Volker Bertelmann’s score, notably blaring as a motif to the action, can sometimes be too overbearing to the action taking place; then again, a lot of people complained about it in All Quiet with three distinguishing notes, although I thought it was perfectly sound.

Ballad of a Small Player is not Berger’s best, but it remains a good piece of action at a brisk 102 minutes, especially when you consider the supernatural element involved which makes you wonder what Doyle is really seeing. Being a foreigner in this part of the world, mingling with the Chinese community makes him a ghost, which Dao says he is using a Chinese term for someone whose presence is mysterious. He’s not a tourist, but a temporary resident who no one knows, and people can see through his con. The story feels thin and could’ve been bulked up, but Berger, Farrell, and company make the most out of this psychological push to make the ultimate jackpot. 

3.5 Stars

Follow me on X:  @brian_cine (Cine-A-Man)