I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone sweat in a movie as much as poor Colin Farrell in Ballad of a Small Player. Whether it’s from the constant, shirt-soaking humidity of Macau’s tropical climate or from the anxiety of losing hundreds—or thousands—on a single hand of cards at a casino, his Lord Doyle never looks as cool and collected as he pretends to be.
We first meet Lord Doyle at a swank casino hotel. A gwai lo (white foreigner) in the gambling metropolis of Macau, he tries to exude an air of upper-class confidence yet comes across as questionable in his green velvet suit and yellow calfskin gloves. He owes thousands to the hotel, but with some desperate sweet-talking at the front desk, he manages to buy a little time. He just needs one big win.
A well-meaning valet directs him to another hotel, where he may get lucky with the most sheer-luck-based card game of all: baccarat. Does he get lucky, or more desperate? Try to guess. Sweat-soaked, he pursues the gorgeous Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a casino employee who seems to offer him a lifeline while being in dire straits of her own. When Lord Doyle discovers that his true identity has been uncovered by a diligent international investigator played by Tilda Swinton (in full awkwardly-dressed-but-awesome mode), he knows his luck needs to change fast—or else he’s screwed.
I wasn’t familiar with Macau before, but Ballad of a Small Player’s gorgeous cinematography frames it as a dazzling, neon-lit playground; a classier Vegas on the water. Farrell’s constantly nerve-wracked Doyle truly is a small player in this big city, trying to fight his addictions and run from his past in the worst possible environment. He’s not entirely unsympathetic, but rather pathetic: a man of his own undoing. It’s hard to see what the gorgeous and troubled Dao Ming sees in him, but that’s part of the mystery that slowly unfurls.
Versatile director Edward Berger gives us a character study of a man completely over his head in a mess of his own making. (Intriguingly, this is the same director who gave us the juicy ensemble piece Conclave and the gritty war drama All Quiet on the Western Front.) Doyle is a fish out of water, a gwai lo in more ways than one, surrounded by a culture of unfamiliar superstition in a town that will make or break him. Small Player’s gauzy look and oppressive atmosphere give it an almost dreamlike quality at points that the film tries to capitalize on. How well this works is up to the individual viewer, I suppose. Though I’m not entirely convinced Small Player sticks its landing, I found that I enjoyed the ride nonetheless.
