If anyone ever hears me say I'm writing a movie about card games, do an intervention. I couldn't even read that scene!

I couldn't sleep so I finally got down to watch this film, because I saw it mentioned here. I couldn't believe that "tell" was the brilliant revelation. It was so cheap and obvious! I also feel like the screenplay used voiceover in the way every person who's ever any type of authority on screenwriting warned us not to do: as expository devices that ultimately confused the audience more than they helped. Though a film liked Shattered Glass proved that, with slightly more clarity and editing skills, that type of narration could prove extremely engrossing. However I really dug all the movie jargons. Matt Damon could be the jargonest actor of recent memory; all of his famous characters were jargon-spewing experts. And that young Ed Norton knew how to build tension thru acting. The movie made the major mistake of having him gone too early, leaving a very bland hero with a far less interesting arc to drag us through the finish line. Ed Norton was in a gangster picture while Matt Damon was in a sports movie, and it was a very clumsy mingle.