Review of Mississippi Grind (2015) by Marco D — 19 Oct 2015

Mississippi Grind starts out slow, just like any other typical gambling movie sitting at the table with cards ready to show and chip stacks piled high. However, you can tell within those first five minutes when Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn find each other, their paths become linked all the way to the very end.

The most immediate comparison people might is to Rounders with the same buddy-buddy premise that Matt Damon and Ed Norton had. This isn't just about playing for yourself though. Unlike Rounders, this movie relies on its friendship between Reynolds and Mendelsohn to carry the weight of bad beats and close calls until they finally break the unlucky streak.

Surely, it's these two stars who carry the film from city to city across the southern parts of the United States, but the people they stop to meet along the way inject just enough of their own character into the film with just enough screen time to let you know exactly who they are without dwelling on them for too long.

It's a gambling movie that's been done time and time again, but where this stands out is the ability to cast two high-profile actors to bounce scenes and dialogue off each other to really push it over some of the other movies in this genre from recent years. It really does want to make you root for the "good" guys like Rounders did. Heck, by the end of it, you almost wish you were at that table with a stake in their hand knowing you just can't lose.