Poker Face
SCREEN MEDIASophomore efforts for directors are always a tricky thing to nail. On one hand, they are usually what the director wants to make first but can’t quite get the budget or approval for, and on the other, they have a roaring success with a directorial debut and are given carte blanche to craft something they want. The two outcomes usually lead to overblown ego projects that store far too much fat due to the nature of the beast and the slim, lacking opportunity of being given money to ultimately make what they want, and not what the studio wants, being a rare occurrence.
Russell Crowe’s sophomore effort follow-up to the Water Diviner, Poker Face, is something caught in the middle. At first glance, it offers something quite guarded and has a feeling of purpose and controlled storytelling that keeps secrets close to its chest but, sadly, as the running time commences, Poker Face spirals into a silly, one-dimensional thriller with little thrills and throttle, ending on quite the egotistical whimper of something thinking it’s bigger and more emotional than it is.
Crowe handles himself incredibly well in the lead role, as well as behind the camera. It’s clear to anyone that he understands the material and every emotional beat and bounce as an actor he utterly nails; be that small lingering gestures of internal moral realisation that add beautiful, albeit small, moments of weight. However, more surprisingly are the moments behind the camera in which has the maturity to leave the camera lingering on these very moments, allowing the audience to be intoxicated with said scenes and feel the emotional baggage – namely the scene in the opening art gallery. The issue is that this describes the first fifteen to twenty minutes when the story feels isolated and guarded, it’s only when Crowe begins to open up the narrative, implying a great intertextual game of wits, that things begin to sour.
This is because that very carrot dangled before the audience's heads is not real. Poker Face implies itself to be a wits-end psychological thriller with a great game afoot for the characters and audience but comes down to one man having a mortality panic with his group of friends. It’s quite the shock of what’s implied to be happening and the dissonance of what occurs. Made all the poorer is that the very implication of narrative is incredibly engaging and suspenseful, crafted with quite a compelling nature of atmosphere from Crowe and editor Bobby D’Buze, who cut to and away in sequences in terrific timing to give just enough pull for the audience to gravitate. Again, it’s the end result here that has a feeling of nothingness and emptiness and that compelling nature fizzles out without a bang.
Character and story arcs are unfulfilling with little substance aside from a semi-grandiose introduction with emphasis on more style and gravity than any substance. The film then promises to fulfil its mystery and secrets by opening itself up to a confounded character study with dramatic verbal tension. It’s here that Poker Face can’t find that second or third gear and stagnates into what essentially feels like silliness – specifically in terms of character choices and motivations that don’t hold weight nor are they able to carry or implement the emotional content the feature desires to showcase. Small manners of monologues are produced to craft half-hearted emotional engagement with the implied narrative leading to confessions and secrets. Yet suddenly, the feature takes an even mystified left-turn of being a home invasion, now the theory here is that, on paper, the film implies the main character is very aware of what is about to proceed and like its namesake has the upper hand. However, the final product, presumably due to the edit, drastically undercuts and even undermines said element, leading the characters to have no idea of this consequence. What makes this even more strange is that the arcs and narrative are therefore not fulfilled and are left on the ice to serve up a thirty-minute different feature that is layered with pomp and self-indulgent dialogue only to revel in its own ego and not serve the feature that came before it. Twenty minutes later the feature quite tamely and in a rushed manner decides to tie itself back up in a poignant manner by bookending with the emotive opening.
Poker Face essentially crafts a Frankenstein event of three-or-four tones, narrative directions and plot with a result ninety-minute picture that can barely fit the simplistic narrative it at first begins within. A strong bookended nature to proceedings, the actual meat in between it is so hollow and flat that the only thing accountable here – with a guess of blame – would be who had Final Cut, and if this feature originally, of which it undeniably feels like, was around two hours and giving the impression it stagnates, therefore re-shoots have beefed processing up to have a clear and precise antagonist. This is not presumably what Crowe has set out to achieve, being a character study of flawed men and their faults. Ultimately, Poker Face is a mess, but not necessarily of what is in but more so what was left out. The emotive core feels strong and brought forward in a performance with great care and attitude by its director and protagonist Crowe. The supporting cast, seeing a different light of Liam Hemsworth, equally offers an intriguing eye. However, the material at hand is ever so underbaked and crafts a dissonance between emotive prowess and narrative form that do not connect and for what should be a tight atmospheric drama leads to a bloated, hollow, and flat sophomore effort.
