Instant Favorite.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

"The Gambler" is a made-for-TV Western-movie, directed by Dick Lowry in 1980.Basic plot: Brady Hawkes (played by Kenny Rogers) is a famous poker player everybody wants to play against. On his trip to New Orleans, he gets to know about his son, who asks him in a letter to help him and his mother. Together with Billy Montana (played by Bruce Boxleitner), an avid poker gamer and a gunman, they are on the way to Hawkes' own problems; including an old enemy of Hawkes sending three assassins against him...I just finished watching this on VHS before writing this review, this because I actually enjoyed this Western-movie. The storytelling was good, and music artist Kenny Rogers does a great performance as the famous gambler who does things with honesty. Bruce Boxleitner also does a great job as a gambler, but also a gunman.The old VHS edition I have was released in Norway by former video distributor VIP Scandinavia AS/MDC Video during the 80s, and was rated 16. According the the video cover, this film was the most popular feature being shown on TV in USA in 1980.For a conclusion, I wish to recommend anybody who enjoys TV-movies or Westerns to watch this movie at least once. My overall rating: 9/10.

I never expected a movie based on a song to be a masterpiece in cinema. The "made for TV category" suits this movie just fine. For a movie that aired on network television, this film is quite good. You have two stories intertwined: Brady Hawkes meeting his son and the history there and Brady's great skill as a fair and honest poker player. Billy Montana seemed a little to pretty to pass as a cowboy in the wild west, but the character's charm makes up for it. I was expecting the Jennie Reed character to be fleshed out a little more and maybe some more interaction between Brady and his son Jerimiah. For what the film is, it works well and is an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.

Considering that this is a made-for-TV Western starring terminally bland and innocuous middle-of-the-road lounge lizard country crooner Kenny Rogers in the lead, I naturally had low expectations about this one. Well, my dire predictions about this picture turned out to be wrong. This feature ain't half bad. Sure, it's no masterpiece, but it's a most acceptable and enjoyable telepic oater inspired by the marvelously atmospheric hit tune. Rogers acquits himself with reasonable assurance and aptitude as wily, weary, worn-out, but still agile and astute itinerant poker player par excellence Brady Hawkes. Bruce Boxleitner is equally personable as Billy Montana, a flashy, cocky, wet-behind-the-ears aspiring gambler Hawkes befriends. Jim Byrnes' hackneyed, by-the-numbers script offers no unusual or surprising plot developments, but fortunately Dick Lowry's competent direction, Larry Cansler's robust, rousing, flavorsome score, and Joseph Biroc's handsome cinematography compensate for the trite story. The top-rate cast qualifies as another major asset: Harold Gould as a powerful, arrogant railroad baron, Christine Belford as Rogers' neglected, estranged wife, Lee Purcell as a plucky former lowly whore turned proud high society lady, Lance LeGault as a cunning, but honorable card sharp, and Clu Gulager as a mean, grasping brute with a secret grudge against Rogers. A subplot involving Rogers bonding with his long ignored son is handled with commendable tact and restraint, while the inevitable big stakes poker game finale delivers the tense thrills something nice. A sizable ratings smash, this film was followed by several sequels of varying quality.

Is it the subtle script? The complex, yet subtle plot? Or is it just the powerful screen presence of the one and only Kenny Rogers? Whatever the formula for this cinematic tour de force, the result is the same: sheer excellence. Only in the first and best edition of the "Gambler" films do we see the dark and tortured character of Bradey Hawkes so well displayed. Like Sir Alec Guinness in "The Bridge on the River Kwai," Paul Newman in "Cool Hand Luke" and Robert DeNiro in "Raging Bull," Kenny Rogers establishes himself as one of the premier actors of our, or any, lifetime. Like other great pieces of cinema ("Citizen Kane" and DeSica's "Bicycle Thief" spring to mind immediately) "The Gambler" portrays that range of emotions so special to the human experience. A masterpiece.