Even in our small world, a great actor can be hidden from mainstream view by geography. When the 2010 Aussie crime picture “Animal Kingdom” banged out from Down Under, it boosted a group of veteran performers — Jacki Weaver and Joel Edgerton among them — onto Hollywood short lists.
The big revelation was a slightly-built actor with a weak chin, one Ben Mendelsohn, who burned a hole in the screen as a frightening psycho.
Mendelsohn was over 40 and well-traveled when that film came out; he’s grabbed visible roles in high-profile movies (“The Dark Knight Rises”) and TV (“Bloodline”) since. But “Mississippi Grind” is the performance that erases any doubt that Mendelsohn is one of the most exciting people on screen these days.
When his character, Gerry, introduces himself, it’s to note that his name is spelled with a G, “like Gerald Ford” — as though to confirm his status as a second-rater. Gerry is a gambler, which is to say he is a loser.
A deadbeat dad, in serious hock to bad people (unexpectedly but splendidly embodied in a single-scene turn by Alfre Woodard), Gerry needs a miracle. He thinks he spots one in a confident stranger, Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), who seems to bring good luck.
They’ll travel down the Mississippi and Gerry will try to win enough along the way to enter a high-stakes poker game in New Orleans. It won’t be that simple, as writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck know all too well.
This is by far their best film from Boden and Fleck since “Half Nelson,” full of seedy atmosphere, neon-lit sadness, and blues music. There’s also a nod to Robert Altman’s “California Split” (1974), a near-classic buddy gambling picture — like that film, this one has as firm a grasp of male friendship as it does of the mania of laying a bet.
Mendelsohn strikes up lively rapport with Reynolds, a sometimes facile actor who really gets in the groove here (Curtis is just as mixed-up as Gerry). The movie’s sentimental tendencies, such as the pair of escorts the boys relax with in St. Louis, are colored in by quirky touches (and, in that case, by the bittersweet performances of Analeigh Tipton and Sienna Miller).
Above all, the movie offers the electric snap of an actor stretching out in his full powers. Ben Mendelsohn just went all in.
“Mississippi Grind” (3 stars)
An atmospheric tale about two gamblers (Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds) road-tripping in search of a jackpot. Good study of friendship and obsession, but the real draw is Aussie actor Mendelsohn’s marvelous portrait of a hard-luck loser.
Rating: R, for language, violence
Showing: 1:50 7:25 9:55 T the Sundance Theater in Seattle
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
