Synopsis
New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him.
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Cast
- James CaanAxel Freed
- Paul SorvinoHips
- Lauren HuttonBillie
- Morris CarnovskyA. R. Lowenthal
- Jacqueline BrookesNaomi Freed
- Burt YoungCarmine
- Carmine CaridiJimmy
- Vic TaybackOne
- Steven KeatsHowie
- London LeeMonkey
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Axel Freed, as played by James Caan, is himself a totally convincing personality, and original. He doesn’t derive from other gambling movies or even from other roles he’s played. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
The Gambler is a perceptive and remarkably paced drama, with director Karel Reisz in full command of his medium. [07 Oct 1974, p.93] - 70
Variety
The Gambler is a compelling and effective film. James Caan is excellent and the featured players are superb. However, it is somewhat overlong in early exposition and has one climax too many. - 60
Time Out
Reisz's direction is panoramic, with aspirations towards the epic, when it should have been closer in and faster. The result is a highly melodramatic and romantic film, for all the veneer of disillusion, whose weighty statement too often swamps the potentially strong suspense. - 50
The New York Times
Mr. Caan is generally convincing, except in those classroom scenes, but all of the other actors, with the exception of James Sorvino who plays a sympathetic bookie, seem defeated by the quality of the material. - 40
The New Yorker
The script, by James Toback, is a grandiloquent, egocentric novel written as a film; it spells everything out, and the director Karel Reisz's literal-minded, proficient style calls attention to how airless and schematic it is.
