Director: Edward Berger
Cast: Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton, Fala Chen, Jason Tobin
Rating: (R13)
★★
REVIEWED BY AMASIO JUTEL
Placing small bets and folding under pressure, Ballad of a Small Player (Rialto) is overstylised and substanceless — met at this level by its director, script and star.
Colin Farrell is Lord Doyle, an in-over-his-head high-roller in Macau, who is down to his last crumpled banknotes. In desperate need of a big win, an angel creditor, Dao Ming (Fala Chen), might have the chips to bail him out. But with private investigator Cynthia Blythe (Tilda Swinton) hot on his trail, Lord Doyle’s con might not outlast his compulsion. It’s a story well told in the original 2014 novel, but adapted to the screen, it barely hangs together.
Thrown into the neon-polluted deep end, director Edward Berger (Conclave) smothers the screen with substanceless style — flashy lighting, lurid camerawork, and abrupt editing are purely uninteresting, further complemented by an abrasive orchestral score. It is overstylisation for shock value, forming a superficial veneer that antithetically makes the piece anonymous. Subtext is sacrificed in the script, substituted with incredibly crude dialogue.
Unfortunately, this degree of formal amateurism is met by the film’s star in full force. Farrell’s drunken stupors, goofy heart attacks and general condition of sweaty panic play as high school stage acting exercises, not the work of an actor of his pedigree.
Hopeful viewers are betting on the river and are dealt a spiritually thematic third act provocation they can point to to say, "I see what you were going for".
Whether aimed as an action/thriller or a character study on addiction comprises a curious degree of nuance. Ballad of a Small Player is both unexciting and apathetic, a choice that at least gestures towards the creator’s own feelings around the subject matter — whether conscious or a byproduct of poor direction remains unclear. It leaves one wondering if they would have been better off watching a short informational on addiction.
