Croupier (1998) is a good tale of an impoverished young writer whose father helps him get a job as a dealer in an English casino. Initially the suspense is novel: Will he slip into his old ways? Although his old ways are only hinted at, he may have been a compulsive gambler. Of course we don’t want the lad to go downhill, partly because he has a promising relationship with an attractive store detective. As he slowly gathers material for his book, he becomes involved, peripherally, in a casino heist, and his relationship with his girlfriend deteriorates.
Although the film is refreshingly intelligent, the ending is a bit rough, as if the story had too many strands to pull together. Immediately after the heist, it is not clear whether it was successful. In one way this is clever because it sets us up for the surprise ending about how his father was conning him the entire time. But the vaguery is also detrimental because we don’t know how to take the shocking death of his girlfriend. The policeman says it may have been just a hit and run, or it may have been a revenge killing related to the casino heist. Either way, the croupier seems little moved by her death. In retrospect we can assume she was probably the victim of a chance hit and run. Deus ex machina?