Turning twenty years old in 2018 is the British drama Croupier, a break-out film for its lead actor, a 33-year-old Clive Owen who plays the casino worker of the title. The feature, brought to the screen by Get Carter director Mike Hodges, went fairly unnoticed on its original run, the film famously being kept on the shelf for two years prior to release, and then disappearing completely from our screens shortly afterwards. Croupier actually found its biggest audience on the other side of the Atlantic, the film grossing most of its global box-office haul (over $7 million) from a North American release in 2000.
To have missed out on this forgotten British classic is a crime in itself, so we thought we’d revisit it two decades after it first went before the cameras.
Owen plays Jack Manfred, an aspiring writer who takes his father’s advice in taking a job in a London casino. He leads a fairly simple existence – living in a tiny flat with his girlfriend, former policewoman/ current store detective Marion (Gina McKee), writing during the day and working the tables at the casino overnight. It this there where he begins to draw inspiration for a novel – the life of a casino croupier. As his job progresses, he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into the murky world of gambling – even though he refuses to do so himself. Manfred’s morals are tested to the full when a mysterious South African named Jani de Villiers (Alex Kingston) enters his life.
Set in a world pre-internet boom when live casinos were still very popular, especially in London, Croupier is a gritty, and indeed twisty affair featuring a superb performance from its lead actor, playing the roulette dealer as a possessed Jekyll and Hyde character, constantly wrestling his own demons; severe states of writer’s block, loneliness in a big city and all kinds of other dark temptation.
Hodges expertly directs the drama, and if the film appears dated two-decides on, it still retains its dignity – portraying a world full of corruption, told with engrossing flair and originality. The gambling scenes are particularly well-done, and a depiction of life inside this sometimes-shady world, minus the bright lights and glamour that today’s super casinos boast, have never been depicted so accurately before, or indeed since.
Owen may have gone on to bigger and better things since, but Croupier is up there as one of his best. It’s a nice swansong for Hodges too – who only directed a couple more films after, none of them matching the quality of this.
Croupier is a forgotten classic from a time long-gone, and well worth seeking out.
Croupier is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
