Dario Argento's The Card Player
The Card Player
The Card Player
The Card Player - Liam Cunningham
The Card Player

Dario Argento's latest, and very eagerly awaited film shows a decided shift towards commercial accessibility. The Card Player is essentially a police thriller with some giallo elements. The film's mix of horror and the Internet has previously been explored supernaturally in films such as Fear Dot Com (2002, d. William Malone) and Kairo (2001, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa). Indeed the film draws on a variety of influences that should please both newcomers to Argento's work, and die-hard followers.

A serial killer is on the loose in Rome, kidnapping women and using them as the stake in a series of computer poker games played with the police over the Internet. If the police win, the victim is set free; if they lose, the victim dies on screen whilst the police observe helplessly. When a British tourist becomes involved, disgraced Irish cop John Brennan played by Liam Cunningham (Dog Soldiers, 2002, d. Neil Marshall) is sent to Rome to investigate. There, he teams up with Anna Mari played by Stefania Rocca (Dracula’s Curse, 2002, d. Roger Young), the no-nonsense Italian detective heading up the investigation. Once they set about tracking down the killer, they are forced to play the game themselves.

The film represents Argento at his most restrained. There is no use of overwhelming colour, associated with many of the director's earlier works. Instead Argento's palette consists mainly of drab greens, most noticeable in the decor of the Police offices, in which most of the action takes place. There are no spectacular murders committed on screen (at least by Argento’s usual standards); instead Stivaletti's special effects are reserved for gruesome autopsy sequences, which are somewhat reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs (1991, d. Jonathan Demme). Technology is very much at the fore here; the standard police phone trace is replaced by an Internet server trace, although the killer’s lair is located by traditional detection methods rather than computer technology. The web cam footage of the victims, viewed on the police computer screens, becomes even more unsettling in the wake of the current wave of kidnappings, and video-taped executions taking place in the Middle East.

The Card Player does however feature several Argento trademarks; the main character’s name, Anna Mari is very similar to Anna Manni, the policewoman played by Asia Argento in The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), for whom Argento had originally conceived this part. A reference to Mari's father's suicide also brings to mind a murder sequence in The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971). There are fetishistic close-ups of office and computer equipment, and an abundance of red herrings. Brennan investigates aural clues as in Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), and there is a Deep Red (1975) style death-by-transport. The film also has many flashes of comedy, the climax of the film featuring the blackest comedy moment of all. However, the purest Argento sequence takes place when Anna is alone in her apartment. It doesn't involve virtuoso camera movements or dextrous knife-work, but merely a reflection, barely glimpsed in a glass bowl.

The film features a soundtrack by regular Argento collaborator, former Goblin keyboard player Claudio Simonetti (Phenomena, Tenebrae, Sleepless). Initially Simonetti's music seems heavily influenced by Kraftwerk (he even incorporates a vocoder) but the main action is alternately accompanied by classic Goblin and pounding techno (a musical genre that Simonetti/Goblin themselves pioneered) cranked up to a level that's enough to drive anybody mad, and on a couple of occasions, it does just that.

The DVD is presented in wide screen 16:9, with stereo and 5.1 surround sound options. The extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, and theatrical/promo trailers. The menu is a nice feature; the graphics and monochrome video distortion calling to mind recent Asian horrors such as Ringu (1998, d. Hideo Nakata).