hideously bad movie purportedly about a croupier who want to be a writer and the incident that make up casino life . move at a snail pace . dull and dull and dull . virtually everything about this movie be amateurish and unconvincing with one very notable exception represent the performance of clive owen and who be like a roll royce purr through a slum . advice for the casino sequence be allegedly provide by a professional but judge by the way in which they be handle they be completely ignore by the director . while casino staff may very well be a different breed to the rest of the world they be nowhere near a witless and booooring a the character present in this script . odds and end be throw into the script in an attempt to provide it with convince background but would appear to have be jot down in a list on a cocktail napkin . for anyone who make a living in the casino business ( a this writer have for the last forty year . ) this be a poverty stricken depiction of their world which even in the farthest and most obscure reach of england have never be this wanting . an appalling and insulting mess of a movie that plod and plod and plod along to an idiotic and unconvincing end . american critic love it .