Synopsis
The Gambler (1974) is Karel Reisz's bruising crime drama, ready to watch online on iFILM. By day Axel Freed teaches literature at a New York university; by night he bleeds money in back-room casinos and to bookies all over the city.
James Caan plays a man who isn't really chasing the win — he's chasing the edge, the moment everything could collapse. Axel dresses up his addiction in Dostoevsky, lecturing students on free will while he digs his own grave. One terrible run leaves him owing $44,000 to people who break arms first and legs second. Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton, Burt Young and a young James Woods round out his world.
James Toback wrote the screenplay straight out of his own gambling life, and you feel it in every scene at the table. A hard, clear-eyed study of self-destruction, where the hero loses not from bad luck but because losing is the point. Stream The Gambler (1974) online on iFILM.
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