The Card Player

Dario Argento's latest film is probably his most well crafted film in 20+ years and probably the most solid pure thriller of the year. It concerns an unseen psychopath who challenges the Roman police to games of video poker for the lives of women he/she has kidnapped. The chief detectives on the trail are a female Italian officer and an Irish cop from the embassy. Argento has some nice set pieces, including a trek through an underground tunnel, and he even lets loose with some of the bold visuals that helped to make Suspiria his masterpiece. Despite some graphic views of mangled corpses, the gore quotient is rather low in comparisson to many of his other films. It's solid, but not great Argento.