Last year I wasn't overly excited for Edward Berger's Conclave and it wound up being in my top 20 of the year. I thought I learned my lesson and put Berger's latest quite high in my most anticipated fall movies list, but unfortunately that seems to have been a bad call on my part. Sadly Ballad of a Small Player was a major disappointment for me, despite holding some great elements.
Ballad of a Small Player follows Colin Farrell as Lord Doyle, a gambler hiding in Macau from his past debts and poor decisions. He continues hitting the casinos under the guise of a wealthy aristocrat, hoping some luck will come his way so he can start paying off some of his debts. Along the way though he meets a woman who may help pull him from his addiction.
On paper that premise sounds like it could be interesting, but sadly this film just offers nothing narratively. Thematically you can argue there are interesting thoughts about addiction, but those ideas aren't fleshed out well at all in my opinion, leaving you with just a flashy but hollow story that fails to ever feel interesting. Colin Farrell is doing his best from a performance standpoint, but he barely gets a character to play. Lord Doyle is a morally grey protagonist but not in an interesting way, his entire personality is gambling and we don't get any glimpse of what led him to that or what else might be under the hood. Similarly, Fala Chen as the woman he starts falling for is also given next to nothing to do. The same can be said for Tilda Swinton, who has some fun moments but ultimately feels wasted thanks to how little juice the story has.
From a production standpoint, you can easily say this is great. Berger and cinematographer James Friend bring Macau to the screen with gorgeous shots and bright lights, and the costumes only aid in the grandeur of the film's style. Musically Volker Bertelmann is doing everything he can to carry this. His score here is epic and exciting, it's just unfortunately wasted on a bit of a flop. I'd almost call this the best bad movie of the year, a film so finely crafted that just sadly fails to create any sense of emotion. It's like putting the engine of a Honda Civic in the frame of a Ferrari, everything looks pretty but there's just nothing special under the hood. 2/5
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