You thought you’d seen the last of him? Well, think again. Paul Schrader returns with his latest, another deep dive into the tortured psyche of God’s Lonely Man.

Oscar Isaac is a Schrader protagonist through and through. His name is William Tell, a distant cousin to a Reverend Toller and Travis Bickle (not actually but symbolically) even going as far as to write stream of consciousness notes on a diary like his Taxi Driving ‘Schrader-verse’ counterpart.

He is a man who wraps his cheap motel rooms in pure white bed cloth (a man who wants to leave no trace?) and has a tattoo running across his upper back reading “I trust my life to providence; I trust my soul to Grace” a quote from the Call song ‘world on fire’. Appropriate to note the next line in that song reads “but nothing takes away the pain, I can’t forget your face”. And Isaac certainly wears that pain on his face.

Bill can be a hard man to sympathize with, especially after we see exactly what pains him so much, but Schrader does once again what he does best…making us root for the irredeemable. While the young Cirk, a troubled companion of Tell’s, wants revenge, William only wants redemption, something he quietly but desperately seeks.

He bows out of poker games early and never gives in to the temptation of winning more. He is, as he calls himself, a ‘modest’ gambler. This restraint comes from a willingness to change his past ways.

For any poker fan it’s a much watch. Shot very much in the same static, observant style of First Reformed, it’s a silent predator of a movie, a taut thriller once it gets over its slow start. I appreciated the variety of Robert Levon Been’s score, never becoming predictable. It included everything from synth machines to heavy breathing and his own songs interspersed throughout the film at surprisingly appropriate times.

Schrader has never shied away from showing his characters simply standing around or doing banal tasks, because in the end it all adds to the complex tapestry that he weaves. After all, he is an honorary student of the Robert Bresson film academy. The film certainly wears it’s influence on its sleeve, as have his films of past. He’s a director who is confident in his own abilities to tell a story at his own pace and isn’t willing to pander to the attention spans of modern-day audiences. His examination of Tell is exactly that.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag of essential and disposable. Tiffany Haddish might just steal the show as someone willing to lend a hand, however, Tye Sheridan never seems quite comfortable when delivering his lines and his presence can drag the film down at times. Is that a fault of the screenwriter or the actor? Either way, it’s a little upsetting to report that Isaac is let down by his co-star here. Together the central trio are an odd bunch but their dynamic mostly works and there are some surprisingly poignant moments between them.

If The Card Counter doesn’t succeed entirely as a coherent story, then it certainly succeeds as a character study. The Ending is a cop out and surprising considering the uncompromising nature of what came before it, but this remains one of Schrader’s sharper efforts and is even an improvement on First Reformed, a film which received rave reviews only a few years ago. All these years have passed, yet Paul Schrader is still as relevant and as much of an authority as he used to be. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

7.9/10