The novel makes you feel like you are Mike McDermott. Mike McDermott’s point of view is constant, whereas the film features many characters in a skilfully nuanced ensemble piece. Generally speaking, and certainly in the case of Rounders: the novel, the story is more insular. How is the Book Different to the Film?īooks, by comparison, are less visual, unless you’re still stuck on ones featuring pictures, in which case we don’t want to spoil what happens to Dr. It’s a show and the film captured both the underground and razzamatazz elements of the game.

Poker is, by definition, a very watchable game because of the color that surrounds it the players, the chips, the venues, the money. The 1998 movie Rounders, written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien and directed by John Dahl starred Matt Damon and Ed Norton, relied heavily on visual prompts. Timed to be available on September 11 th, 1998 – ye, three years exctly before the World Trade Centers were attacked in New York – the Rounders novel came out to much less fanfare. Unless you’ve read the film’s novelization, that is.Īlmost as old as the movie itself, was Kevin Canty’s creation, timed for its release to appeal to fans who had already seen the movie in cinemas an afterthought, doomed to exist in the shadows of the 1998 cinematic release or a brilliant book in its own right? And whatever happened to Mike McDermott at the end of the novel?

Mike was able to walk away, and so too was the movie, goes the legend. Where Rounders is criticised is only in never coming back for more. To some extent, the film was so good that it has made any attempt to make another poker movie with different characters in look pale by comparison. For a quarter of a century, poker fans have been obsessed with the movie Rounders.

Movies about poker Rounders 2