In Edward Berger’s Neon Nightmare BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYERColin Farrell is a sweat-soaked Specter Haunting The Casinos of Macau. The regulars he encounters offten reference to him a “gweilo,” Cantonese for “Ghost Man,” Applicable to Him in Many Ways. First, The Gambling Addict is Posing As Lord Doyle, Though it is QUICKLY POINTED OUT TO HIM DOYLE ISN’T A POSH NAME.
Instead, it turns out that the ex-pat is actually a man named reilly, a con man on the run. Based on the novel of the same name by lawrence, Berger’s Latest is a Strange Beast of a Film, Manic and Often Directionless, Making Some Strange Choices, A Script and Film as Its Central Character. Berger’s Gorgeous Direction, Volker Bertilmann’s Throbbing Horns-And-Strings Score, and Farrell’s Commonted Performance, BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYER Barely Manages to Hold it All Together, Though.
Ballad of a Small Player May off off more than it can chew, and it struggles to bring all of its threads together as it caarens a religion conclusion that is as delirious as farrell’s character, but it nonheteless an entertaining ride.
BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYER IS A FLWED FILM THAT I COULDN’T LOOK AWAY From
The First Word Out of Farrell’s Mouth in the Film is a Belabored “F*ck” – He’s Clearly Hungover, HIS Palatial Hotel Room Littered with Empty Champagne Bottles, Dirty Clothes, and Overturened Fur. The Macau Sunshine is As Piercing As the Migraine Reilly Surely Has and, if he Could Hear the Music that Accompanies the Gorgeously Debaucherous Skene, It Wold Surely Get Worsse.
Berger Gives the Proceedings A Sense of Grandiosity in the Same Way He Imbed Conflict‘S Papal Drama With A Sense of Ever-Growing Stakes. Macau is shot like a ghost town, the carsinos and backdoor gambling rooms vast and hollow, the greed and compulsion of the haunting figures that populates through the Screen.
This is all supported by farrell’s gonzo performance, anyone in the between the hallucinogenic panic of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the live-wire anxiety of Uncut gems. The only problem is that farrell raarely, if Ever, leaves this register for a moment of Respite. Berger’s Film is operating at this level for it 100-minute runtime, which can provesing and undermine any sort of development the story gestures at.
That Story Also Involves Two Other Figures-Tilda Swinton’s Cynthia Blithe, A DelightFully KoOky Investigator with a to-Die-For Pair of Glasses Hot on Reilly’s Tail, and Falla Chen’s Dao Ming spiral out of control. Both Are Sort of Haunting Reilly Themselves, Potential Representing Outcomes for Him Depending on Which Path He Chooses.
Of Course, Reilly, Being the Gambling Addict he is, is convinced that his next Lucky break is right on the horizon. As he careens from carsino to cajasino, Linging Every Step of the Way, Berger Forces US to Behold the self-destruction at play here. IT’S NOT PLEASANT TO WATCH, with MANY of Farrell’s Best Scenes Also Being Deeply Uncomfortable portraits of a man on the verge of Ling it all, Including His Mind.
For what BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYER Lacks in Cohsoveness, it make up for it in pure style. Berger’s missteps here are much more forgivable thanks to this, thiugh when the movie crescendos with a predictable twist, it can’t feel but feel as if it has lost the full. Watching a character make terrible deciss for nearly two hours is a tough ask of audiences and, though BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYER doesn’t fully justify it chaos, it’s an an entertaining thrill ride nononeheless.
BALAD OF A SMALL PLAYER Screened at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix Will Release the Film in Limited Theaters on October 15 before it is available to stream on October 29.
- Release Date
- October 15, 2025
- Runtime
- 101 minutes
- Directory
- Edward Berger
- Wriers
- Rowan Juffe, Lawrence Osborne
- Producers
- Matthew James Wilkinson, Elle Gibbons, Mike Goodridge
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