Metacritic reviews

Mischievously entertaining...Dahl's film has character in oversupply even if its actual characters are sometimes thin. Poker fever makes up for whatever the story lacks in everyday emotions.

Rounders is such a smart, tough little film that its strengths override its fairly serious weaknesses.

Lazy, predictable and even dumb about what happens away from the tables. [11 Sept 1998]

Richly atmospheric but a little thin in the character department: It feels oddly truncated, despite nicely textured performances.

Stylish entertainment and smartass fun when director John Dahl ("The Last Seduction") plays his strong suit (a gifted cast) instead of his weakest (a derivative plot).

The acting is solid, but the story builds less drama and suspense than its high-stakes subject might lead you to expect.

It should have been the poker equivalent of "The Hustler." But it suffers from iron-poor blood. No energy. It just lies there.

Neither Dahl nor most of his actors ever quite convince us that there's a good reason to sit in front of a movie screen watching them for more than two hours.

Like Malkovich's out of control Russian accent, Rounders ends up reaching a place too hard to understand and even harder to believe in.

An unappealing, conventional, and somnolent piece of work in which, as glumly directed from David Levien and Brian Koppelman's corny script, every scene feels like it's being played for the second time.