The Music of Chance (Philip Haas, 1993)

It's hard to believe, but there once was an increment of time when degenerate gamblers who played cards for a living were viewed as human garbage. Hence, the use of the word "degenerate" in their unofficial moniker. Though, I'm sure they prefer the pompous, "professional poker player," or the more modest sounding, "card player." Anyway, nowadays these once transient hustlers, who used to spend the majority of their time looking for saps to con in backroom poker games, have inexplicably become celebrities. (I still don't understand how sitting at a table in sunglasses warrants round the clock television coverage.) Well, in The Music of Chance (Musik des Zufalls), the image of the shady card player is still intact. Adapted by Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy) from his novel of the same name and directed by Phillip Hass (Angels and Insects), the film is a bizarre oddity about luck and the randomness of life. The act of Jim Nashe (Mandy Patinkin) picking up a bloodied and bruised Jack Pozzi (James Spader) on the side of the road sets in motion a peculiar turn of events that end with the pair being forced to construct a stonewall in the middle of a meadow using stones from an Irish castle.

Now, I don't really want to go into how they exactly wind up erecting a seemingly pointless barrier (the property is surrounded by a tall, barbed wire-laden fence), but let's just say, the charming Jack plays poker for a living (he brags that he's basically unbeatable), driving enthusiast Jim has 10,000 dollars burning in his pocket, and their so-called "marks" have been practicing. In other words, their sure thing turns into a nightmare when eccentric millionaires Flower (Charles Durning) and Stone (Joel Grey) beat Jack and propose they work off what they owe by, yep, building a wall.

It's probably a metaphor for unselective nature of luck; after all, Flower and Stone earned their fortune through the most irregular way possible: the lottery. In fact, they could have been supreme beings. I mean, they wore white and lorded over a miniature city. However, I choose to see, and enjoy immensely (its weirdness is subtle yet fully engrossing), the film as a sort of off-kilter buddy flick. One that just happens to feature two excellent performances by James Spader and Mandy Patinkin, as the desperate men at the centre of this accidental masonry story, and leaves you with a deep sense of unease afterward. (It took me days to shake the cobwebs of this film.)

Of course, I found James' more flashy work as the shifty Jack to be far more entertaining (he gets all the best lines and gets to smoke and swear a lot), but I gotta give Mandy props for his cool and calm turn as the pragmatic Jim. Supervising the pair as they work and live on Flower and Stone's land is the always great M. Emmet Walsh as Murks, the man in charge of making sure the task gets done right. The only connection Jim and Jack have with the outside world, Emmet does a tremendous job of creating a blissfully ignorant brand of evil. And since Flower and Stone have gone AWOL, it's up to Emmet to keep Spader's greasy moustache in order and make sure Mandy doesn't go overboard with the high octave singing (he indulges in one song during the celebration of a wall milestone).

The sausage festival that is this movie is thankfully broken up when Samantha Mathis' arrives as Tiffany, an Atlantic City prostitute in a tight orange cocktail-style dress hired to alleviate Jack's horniness. Even though her role basically reduced to sitting and listening to James Spader spew verbal gymnastics in her general direction (he really wants to get laid), I thought Samantha was first-rate as a vacuous, moderately clueless whore.

Yeah, sure, The Music of Chance could have used more of Miss Mathis, but her inclusion in the story seemed like a bit of a stretch to begin with, so I should be thankful she was in it in the first place; even if it was just to help assist the contents of James Spader's under-molested cock and balls to see the light of day.

Oh, and the style of poker played in the film was seven card stud, and like in the bulk of movies that feature the playing of poker, the frequency of premium hands was a little far-fetched. What they should have done was show a couple of hands being folded every now and then just to prove that not every hand was a full house or a four-of-a-kind.

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