Filmmaker Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave) returns with is third Toronto International Film Festival premiere with Ballard of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell who plays Lord Doyle. A down on his luck gambler. The film is based on the novel by Lawrence Osborne and adapted by screenwriter Rown Joffe.
It is cliche to say it however I shall say it. Anytime a film is shot on location in an amazingly cinematic local - in this case, Macau - Macau is indeed it's own character in the movie. The cinematography by James Friend (All Quiet on the Western Front) beautifully captures the sensory overload of the gambling capital of the world.
The act of gambling is a ever increasingly successive roller coaster of highs and lows. Lord Doyle walks out of the hotel and asks the attendant for a limousine. The attendant informs the Lord that all the cars are currently tied up. Lord Doyle informs him he just needs one big win. The big score all gamblers and bank robbers are chasing.
Lord Bryon informs us that he a gweilo. A Chinese word for white people. It literally translates to "ghoul man" or "ghost man."He is a ghost floating through the universe invisible. Perhaps so but not so invisible to the people the Lord owes money to.
Lord Doyle's game of choice is Pai Gow. A game of insanely high stakes and insanely crazy swings. He wakes up back in the hotel hungover. Today is the first day of the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts Residents from all over the city will be attending and bringing offerings for the dead.
Lord Doyle leaves the hotel for another night of depravity and arrives at a scene of a man who committed suicide and landed on a car on the street. A torrential downpour starts. He gets into a taxi with Dao Ming (Fala Chen) he pleads to her as only a desperate gambler can. His luck has to change. It is all statistics...right? No one can stay down for ever? Right? He offers Dao a proposition a 50/50 split. She shuts it down, "no more credit to him or anyone else." She has given up. "On life?" Lord Doyle asks. "Lending money to another addict?" She says to Doyle.
Dao offers an offering to a shrine. The flames of the pyre light up the night. Doyle informs Dao he is about to win to win big and will pay off his debts and her debts. His ship is about to come in. A Lord never goes back on his word. Dao whispers, "I have run out of chances."
Doyle runs into another gweilo Betty (Tilda Swinton) who snaps his picture. He wants the picture deleted. He wants five hundred USD for the picture. They have a conversation and she calls Doyle by another name. He takes off with her purse and sets off a chase through the hotel. She gives him the money he wins 10000 grand at the table.
Can a gambler ever get the big score? Will that ship ever arrive? What if you did hit the score? What is left? There is always...one...last...bet....
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