The Card Player
The Card Player Italian Il cartaio is a 2004 giallo film directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Stefania Rocca and Liam Cunningham and is Argentos second giallo feature of the decade following Sleepless.
The film centers around a serial killer known as The Card Player, who is kidnapping young women in Rome. Using a webcam setup, the killer challenges the police by forcing them to play hands of Internet poker. If the police lose, the kidnapped victim is tortured and murdered onscreen. When a British tourist is among the girls murdered, policeman John Brennan Cunningham is assigned the case and quickly teams up with Italian detective Anna Mari Rocca. The duo have their work cut out for them when the Police Chiefs daughter Argento becomes the killers latest kidnapping victim.The Card Player received a negative response from critics. The film has an approval rating ofon movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on ten reviews. The New York Times wrote, The Card Player ... doesnt break the unhappy streak of his Argentos later films. Though its based on a promisingly outrageous premise ... the film unfolds as a tired, thoroughly conventional police procedural that might as well be titled CSI Roma. AllMovies review was unfavorable, writing, The Card Player offers a fair amount of suspense and at least one memorable set piece, but for those even remotely familiar with Argentos canon, theres the feeling that its all been done before and handled with much more style and confidence. ........
Source: Wikipedia
