Mississippi Grind – Film Review V2.0 – By Frank L.

Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

Writers: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Stars: Ben Mendelsohn, Ryan Reynolds, Yvonne Landry

This is a further collaboration by Fleck and Boden having previously worked on Half Nelson. It starts with a spectacular rainbow over the Iowa landscape. The rainbow as everyone knows has a crock of gold at its end. Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) is a forty something year old, down-on-his-luck real estate dude. He enjoys cards, casinos, the horses and the dogs. He wanders into a poker game into which arrives Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), early thirties, handsomely bearded who also enjoys the excitement of the turn of a card, the shake of the dice and a flutter at the track. He is far more suave and shrewd than Gerry to whom he says “where there is a fork in the road there is a choice”. Gerry never sees the fork in the road as he listens in his car to cds on how to improve his gambling technique. Gerry decides that Curtis is his lucky mascot and they decide to follow the great river, Mississippi, all the way down to New Orleans where Gerry knows there is a good game of cards to be encountered.

Curtis and Gerry both have difficult pasts but neither shows his hand to the other quickly. But they move from joint to joint as they encounter various towns along the course of the river. This is the glory of the film: the shots of small town gambling joints, some shabbier, some chicer than others and the unsmart world where they exist. The clientèle is diffuse, not very happy, all in one way or another in pursuit of the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. There are one or two diversions to permit Gerry and Curtis to reconnect, albeit fleetingly, with their past. The past represents responsibilities. Neither are comfortable with responsibility.

Ben Mendelsohn with minimal physical movement but with eyes which gaze towards some unseen promised land of milk and honey is mesmerising as Gerry. Whether he is at the races, talking to his loan shark, imagining the next great bet, the certain winner, or acting as an incompetent estate agent he is always credible. His encounter with his ex-wife, Dorothy is toe-curling in its amorality.

Ryan Reynolds as Curtis is not yet down on his luck and the bloom of youth is still in his bearded cheeks. He has extrovert qualities; he can charm. The scars of gambling have not yet outwardly marked him.

While the story is somewhat meandering, the great river keeps it rolling along ably assisted by a sound track which complements the terrain. The film is worth seeing for Mendelsohn’s and Reynolds’ outstanding performances alone but the entire makes a compelling drama set in the underbelly of life on the shabby fringes of provincial towns and in the downtown of bigger cities; their luck too appears to have been in an earlier time.