Related: The Best Revenge Movies About Vengeance and Payback 13. It's just used as a lens to explore a very dark piece of recent history. That is, unless William can distract him with the World Series of Poker.Īs you might gather, The Card Counter isn't really about gambling at all. There's something about the phrase 'enhanced interrogation techniques' that doesn't sit right, and young Cirk (played by Tye Sheridan) is out for revenge on the Major who implemented them. During those eight years, he learned to count cards while serving time for his hand in torturing and abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners (a real tragedy that surfaced in 2004). In a sense, William is spending his days in sort of afterlife, given that his former life was spent in a military prison.
William Tell (played by Oscar Isaac) lives a sad life, moving from one motel to the next, living out of suitcases and covering all the furniture in bedsheets. Gambling films aren't usually bloody, but The Card Counter is.
