What makes it different from others?

Absolutely Fantastic

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The only two things that I found to be incredible in this extraordinary example of useless junk are - the amount of first class actors engulfed in a meaningless and pointless "drama" and the exact quantity and type of prohibited substances the screenwriter used creating the most disgusting, unappealing and completely, insultingly imbecile principal character, very professionally played by Wahlberg though . In fact everyone's acting is of upper level - the only problem is that their efforts are completely wasted. It looks like heavy drugs interfered very heavily with the constructing of the story - for the characters of the "thugs" seem more like loving kings-magicians, understanding and forgiving towards their debtors like in a bad comedy, the girl find it OK to sleep with her teacher, finding as the most attracting treat of her lover his dumb "ability" of losing every cent of money he can grab from anyone. In other words having to face the dilemma of watching this mess or going to the dentist to get most of your teeth fixed - choose the dentist - it would do much better.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Jim Bennett, a university professor and novelist with an addiction to gambling. Wahlberg is uncharismatic and unconvincing in a tiresome role in which he has to harangue his students on the subject of true genius. He isn't much of the problem, though since he is the central character, his character was awful in many sense and made it worse to root for him to win. On his personal time, he loses a fortune at blackjack, and finally stakes everything on a plan to persuade one of his students to throw a high-stakes college basketball game. The film contained more crude language than needed, and in a film as this it was taken too serious for certain enjoyment. It was more dark in a sense than expected. Had they made the film more light hearted, perhaps it would have been better. Altogether the Gambler did poorly at the box office (mainly due to a bad release date- Christmas 2014), and since then, it appears this film has become quite forgotten.

The Gambler is terrible - just a mess. I like Mark Wahlberg, but again he seems miscast as Jim Bennett, disgruntled and disillusioned English Lit teacher who is addicted to gambling. Wahlberg struggles to portray this poor little rich kid who's had everything, yet values none of it. The only positive is that Bennett knows he's a jerk, and secretly is hoping that someone will take him out of his misery. Wahlberg is much better in comedy, and roles where his natural down to earthiness fit the role much better.He has a disgruntled relationship with his English Lit class, demeaning the kids who have scholarships and are just in class because it's required. Bennett tries to act cool, but it just comes off as stupid. Then at night, he goes into his gambling world and strives to gamble until he loses everything.Jessica Lange plays his mother - she's the only reason I give this a 3 instead of a 1. She's terrific as his angry rich Mom who enables her spoiled brat son, but finally comes to her senses. Also, John Goodman is pretty good as this loan shark Frank who is brutally honest about what the consequences are of not paying back money borrowed from him.Finally, Bennett has a relationship of sorts with his student played by Brie Larson. She also works in the gambling house he attends, so she knows all the off-school stuff he does. But instead of digging more deeply into the whys of gambling addiction via expanding their time together, the movie goes completely off the tracks with stupid scenes and just bad scripting. In the end, there's a Rocky-like epiphany, but I just wanted to scream because there was no build up, no reason, no good anything about why what happens would decide to happen at that point. I just threw my hands up in the air and said, boy this is stupid.Bad casting, so-so acting, crummy screenplay, bad story. Avoid The Gambler. You want to see a good gambler movie, re-watch The Sting. But don't bet your time on The Gambler. It's a loser.

It took me three sittings to get through this movie, partly due to boredom, and partly because I stopped caring what happened to Mark Wahlberg's character.THE GAMBLER is about Jim Bennett, who lives a double life as a college professor and a degenerate gambler. He quickly finds himself out of control, and in debt to more than one shady character. Even with his mother bailing him out, he proceeds to blow more money, seemingly not caring about the result.The problem with this movie is twofold: First, the script is written in a very theatrical way, with long soliloquies more befitting a Shakespearean character than a movie actor. Nobody in real life talks like that. Second, Mark Walhberg does not have the depth or ability to deliver these long speeches in any other way than a monotonous mumble. In addition, his character shows little emotional range, making the audience share his ambivalence, not caring whether or not he finds redemption in the end.The only entertaining contribution to this movie comes from John Goodman, one of the loan sharks to whom Mark Wahlberg's character is deeply indebted. Unfortunately, Goodman only plays a small role in an otherwise forgettable movie.