Kill James Bond! - S4E26: Croupier

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Picture this. You're a failing writer, you have a girlfriend who isn't great for you but loves and supports you, and a dingy little zone 1 basement flat. What if you threw it all away to become a Sigma Male? What if you became... a Croupier?   ----- Friend of the show Bella, a refugee evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021, is raising money for her gender confirmation surgery! Anything you can give would be hugely appreciated! https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/team-bella ----- Check out friend of the show Mattie's new book Simplicity here, or wherever fine graphic novels are sold! ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. In our home, we talk a lot about how insane everything feels, and agonise constantly over what can be done to best help the Palestinians trapped in Gaza facing the full brunt of genocidal violence. My partner Rebecca has put together a list of four fundraisers you can contribute to- all of them are at work on the ground doing what they can. -Palestinian Communist Youth Union, which is doing a food and water effort, and is part of the official communist party of Palestine https://www.gofundme.com/f/to-preserve-whats-left-of-humanity-global-solidarity -Water is Life, a water distribution project in North Gaza affiliated with an Indigenous American organization and the Freedom Flotilla https://www.waterislifegaza.org/ -Vegetable Distribution Fund, which secured and delivers fresh veg, affiliated with Freedom Flotilla also https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiser_id=1102739514947848 -Thamra, which distributes herb and veg seedlings, repairs and maintains water infrastructure, and distributes food made with replanted veg patches https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-thamra-cultivating-resilience-in-gaza ----- WEB DESIGN ALERT Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com , as well as on our Bluesky and X.com the every app account

Hello and welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I am joined, as always, by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon. Hello, listen to. What's up? And we are watching a film that, that I think is going to indict me more than anyone, more than any we've seen, even.

Oh my. Because I was talking to Abby about this before we started recording, and this is a film that I watched, for the first time, when I was 15, I was trying to sort of educate myself about films, and I don't know how I alighted on this one, but I downloaded on a torrent and watched on my PC, Crupier,

and let me tell you this I thought this wasn't life-changing for you It was the coolest thing in the world to me I really I was like I'm the guy I'm the croupier from croupier I'm gonna sort of model my whole sense of masculinity around this movie Oh you had a Serpico moment

with croupier from croupier That's unfortunate I did I did A similar number of hat involvement as well We'll get to the hats I can't judge you, Nova, because I also wore a stupid hat and also got into card tricks and magic and stuff. I also wore a stupid hat for a long time. Let's put our cards on the table and an apropos metaphor as well.

This movie is not about 9-11, which means it's about being transgender and there is a kind of guy or I don't know whether there is still a kind of guy, but there definitely was a kind of guy in 1998 when this movie came out. and subsequently for the noughties. This kind of guy was being that kind of guy in order to avoid being a woman. And I think November and I were both this kind of guy at some point. In so many ways, because the thing is, it's a form of kind of camouflage or it's like a kind of heat shield where if you put a weird enough set of adjectives in front of guy,

people see those and then they don't see the guy part, which means they don't question it as much and you don't have to think about it as much. Exactly, exactly. And if they're doing the whole, I think you should leave, oh my God, he's still fucking wearing it, that sketch. That's like a squids ink, you know? They're not thinking about whether or not you have gendered this for you.

This is not I saw the TV glow. It's I saw the roulette wheel spin. Yes. Yeah. And so the thing is, this is kind of a nostalgia trip for me, because somehow I got out of my adolescence. obviously at some point the penny dropped that this wasn't actually cool

but I still believed in my heart of heart that this was a good film and then I rewatched it for this having suggested it for this thinking oh this will be a good film I can talk about the kind of influence I had on me and yes it was cringe but like it's a good film and I was watching it and I thought

oh no oh no I premised a sort of part of my character my existence on a film that is not only cringe but it's also not good it's also bad. This is like when we watched Shoot Em Up for me but Nova, do you know what? Do you know what's actually really nice and really funny? Of the three named female characters in this movie

two of them look exactly like you now. So in a way maybe this movie kind of you know maybe you're just watching the wrong character in it. It is possible, yes. That's good. Thank God you like hold the controller in the right way. where you can skip across from being the Crupeier to being that nice dealer.

Once you play through Crupeer once, you unlock cinema mode where you can swap Nathan Drake's model with any of the others in the game. It's iconic hat. Then it's Gina McKee from Brass Eye wearing the iconic hat, yes. God, yeah, it is. Crupier is a 1998 neo-noir movie, and it really tries to be a neo-noir movie. We haven't talked about a lot of classic film noir. We will do. Maybe its own season, I don't know.

The main way you can tell that it's a neo-noir is that he's doing the noir dialogue. He's doing the like voiceover the whole time. Yeah. He's sort of like, there's a stream of consciousness. It's very bad. A croupier, by the way, is the guy who croops. It's the comparative form of the adjective, croopy. It's a dealer in a casino card game.

Yes. He's crooping. We begin with our boy crooping, and our boy is Clive Owen. That's right, hell yeah. Greasy and thin. Yeah. And quite young as well. Wearing a tuxedo saying, please cast me as James Bond.

Yeah. And then they never did. The Bond, which I think is a shame. I know, I know. He's, yeah, it's a shame. He couldn't play Bond now. No. But there's a lot of points in his, like, filmography where he could have jumped track

to Bond. Yeah, this was sort of his layer cake in the sense of it being his... I mean, Daniel Craig had had a longer career as an actor before this than Clive Owen had before Crupier, but like, it was still the kind of

like breakout role and Bond audition. You know, there's the shots in there where he's in the tuxedo kind of like smuggling. That's very much alike, have you seen my tape? I have sort of smuggled it into Barbara Broccoli's pockets. Please watch my tape.

But so we begin in a casino, a London casino, you can tell, because it's terrible. Yes. Oh, yeah. The 90s, all of the mirrored surfaces. And he is crooping, our boy's creeping at a roulette table. And we get some narration that he has achieved a kind of croupier Zen state. You know, he's in a kind of flow state of watching gamblers. You do get some nice repulsive shots

because I do think this movie does a couple of things well of gamblers. Not easy to make gamblers. I'm not difficult to make gamblers look bad. I just saw Ballad of a Small Player, which does that quite well. Or you could watch the card counter,

which is a much better movie. And you see his kind of contempt for them, but he's also kind of like very much centered in the room, you know? Yes. The whole world turns around him like a roulette, wheel. He's not touched by it because his money isn't on the line. He's so stigma. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He's not participating in the world. He doesn't have to be a human being. Listeners my thesis is that this is a fucking egg ass movie. It is an egg ass movie. Yes.

I mean, certainly, even if it's, it's not in itself an egg ass movie, which it is, it appealed to me on an egg ass level. Like, I was watching this thinking, damn, it must be so cool to be completely aloof from the world because you're like smarter than everyone yes yes and wear a stupid hat it's so important maybe my hat's not stupid because i'm actually so much smarter than everyone else in the world yeah i need that hat to cover my enormous brain but anyway we flashback um and we meet uh five oh one tells us that his name is jack manfred and he's a writer and he goes to see this woman, Fred. Yeah, exactly.

He goes to see this publisher called Giles and has a meeting that I think I've had several times before with TV producers. Yeah, Christ. He's just like, yeah, man, I really love a job writing. And then this guy just gives him a bunch of fucking bullshit. Yeah, so Giles, Giles is presumably like old school friend, right?

Presumably private school as well. And this movie really, this is one of the ones where it's like the writer's obvious acts to grind as being, ground here as we find out, and I'm not going to argue with this, certainly, that the 1990s British publishing industry is uniquely sort of venal and stupid. Giles has a slot machine in his office that he's just idly playing with because, you know, it's like gambling. This is the first of many things this movie does where it's the disease of a central metaphor, you know, and it really hammers it too long and too hard and on too many things of being like publishing it's a lot like gambling

so sort of bookmark that for later but also jiles has no idea what he's doing he has sort of total contempt for the form and the only work he can offer jack is ghostwriting sort of nonsense um whatever is whatever's in that week something like soccer novel and then they'll like slap a celebrity's face on it there's also a funny bit where he says um don't give up uh and then he says i want to give you three words of advice and then he gives him like 15 words of advice well they come in three yeah all them in like three word couplets it's really good yeah and it's just this like cliche triplets i suppose bullshit he's like yeah survive till 25 stay in the mix till 26 the industry is just really bad at the moment just kind of hold on network not net worth yeah yeah hustle and grind yeah you just

got to believe yeah and jack thanks to himself yeah go fuck yourself we can we can tell that this is earlier, by the way, because Jack has a horrible blonde dye job. He does, yeah. In our introduction, he's got close cropped black hair, but he's got this awful, like, blonde job here. Yeah, he goes back from James Bond to like, I don't know, like Guy Pearson Memento or, yeah. So he's sitting at his, his, in his shitty basement flat in London, you can tell it's shitty because it's got, you know, bars on the windows to stop people breaking in. He's sitting at his 90s word processor trying to write this football book and the first time

you see him, you get the fedora jump scare. He's got a stupid writing hat that he puts on when he's in writing mode and it's really good. I mean, can you imagine if someone decided to just start wearing a hat that they thought reflected their personality, maybe a little bit sort of out of time? I can't judge you for this, Nova, because as I said, as I said, I had, I had a fedora with a skull and crossbones on it, and that's, that's the hat that I used. That was my egg hat. Like a kind of detective pirate.

There you go. It was way too small as well. I also had a bunch of fedoras at about that, that age. I was saying this to Abby before we started that I was worse, because I did have a fedora, but I had to work my way to the fedora because initially I had a bunch of trilbies. Oh my God, no, I think I had trilbies instead, actually. You're so right. Whoever decided to sell trilbies by the tills in Topshop was committing an unthinkable act of trans-misogynistic violence.

And second of all... It was like a psychic fucking blow. That's where I got mine. They genuinely think I might have bought one from there. Not a single top ever shopped in Topshop, first of all. Yeah, fucking bottom shop for real. Top man wrong on both counts. However...

However, I had, you can sort of put this on a chronology as well. I was saying to Abby before we started, because I stopped wearing the trilby, not because I realized it was cringe, but because the trilby was becoming increasingly associated with, like, the manosphere. And for a while, my beef with them beyond the obvious was they were making my hat uncool. So it was me and Yatzi Crozier were the, like, Victims of anti-feminism on that side. You know what?

That's good. Shout out to Yasi Crocea, who by the way, is still going. He's still going. He's still making those. I found that out the other day. But I stopped wearing my skull and crossbones fedora when I was on Granger Street in Newcastle and some people started pointing and laughing at me

and then they started throwing things. And they stopped throwing after that. The world is so cruel to a would-be detective. I wish people had done that to me. I kept on with a fucking troll-beer for quite. some time. There's a character in the Michael Grant phase series that was wearing one and it just like, it hit me like a ton of bricks at the specific age. You can just be victimized.

Sometimes it happens. Cosmic Ray just flips something in your brain and you're like, I could put a Trilby on. I think I can pull it off. It's like the black shirt, white-skinned tie that we all wore. I was just thinking of it. It was part of the egg uniform. Look, we've all got photos of us in the black shirt or the white skinny tight Yeah, we do

You have to do it James Bond highlights If you need those from us You can possibly get them I don't know Yeah, actually reach out I got them Yeah, and reach out

We'll redact to one of the I guess the question I'm sort of asking In this little tangent is Is it worse to get bullied And experience the sort of temporary pain Of getting bullied out of something And forced into conformity

Or not to get bullied And just to go through life in the trilby you know just thinking this is fine I've got this shit on and I don't know I don't know I think they're both bad aren't they

the real answer is that a secret third thing which has become a woman he's also wearing like braces like suspenders over a jumper yep

yep look we're gonna do away with this guy and again you can see sort of the reflection of 15 year old me in the the computer screen, being like, that's me.

That could be me. I could be that cool. I could be the croupier. From croupier, yeah. At this point, his dad calls him and says, I've got to give you the call to adventure. There's a casino in London called the Golden Lion. I've got you a job offer there as a croupier. If a croupier from the movie, Crupier, go in there and speak to Mr. Reynolds.

His dad, by the way, very cockney accent. And we see he's calling him from a casino. Somewhere hot, somewhere warm. And he says, like, you know, keep going, don't let yourself down. And he also says, well, how are you doing, Dan? He's like, oh, yeah, I just started a new company. I just got financing for it. And, like, he's spinning this very sort of flash yarn about how well he's doing,

which is then immediately undercut. Mm-hmm. Because we see him as he hangs up the phone, go and take his job as a casino bartender with the sort of like commissaire jacket and stuff. Yeah. The lady at the bar who he makes a drink for is, has like a massive 1998 mobile phone

that's probably giving like ear cancer to everyone within a five mile radius extremely funny I kind of yeah so the other thing about this

is we're skipping over a lot of the really obnoxious narration which the movie kind of correctly thinks of a noir movie that it's obnoxious right

because it is it really is trying to do a sort of 40s 50s noir movie in the late 90s and it gets that part of that is sort of like earnestly committing to an annoying form

but it really overcommits and so Jack is then thinking in his head Jack was hanging up the phone on his dad and going to like go and work at the casino for stupids right and we see that as he goes to this casino he has both a familiarity and a contempt of

familiarity with and a contempt for casinos and gambling. It's like a previous addiction. He thinks this is all very beneath him. Yes, absolutely. I mean, goes to meet the manager, Mr. Reynolds, who's a Scotsman. We learn a couple of things here. One is that Jack is from South Africa. And the other thing he says is your dad has a bit of a reputation, doesn't he?

And he gets to see it. Okay. He also, he went to, we get the private school thing ticked off. He went to Bidails, which is a very like, theater moms send their kids here it's very artistic which is I guess why his internal monologue is like that

so there is a lesson here do not send your children to private school both because it's immoral in itself and because it's traumatic in itself but also because there is a decent chance you will give them an internal monologue and it's going to sound like this and it's just going to be awful

and then also if it turns out that they're women it's going to be real fucking hard to undo all of that all of that shit it's mostly just gonna some of it's gonna stay and you're gonna have them make a podcast about it like it's yeah yeah and they'll just be sort of insane megalomaniacs all part of the process you have to do it really

yeah so Reynolds gives him a sort of like test of his his like his croupiering skills I don't know he groups yeah he gives him some chips and some cards and says croup that shit Yeah, and he does create pretty poor. If you sort of don't mind the audible gear change of shot that doesn't include Clive Owen in it

when someone's hands are sort of like moving all the chips. Yeah, he's really good at it because it turns out he has the magical ability to use someone else's hands to do it. My God. It's like every medium shot, Clive Owen, every close-up shot is pure hands and there's nothing else. And it's like, great. His hands get like much less vascular when he's crooping. and then you cut back to Clive Owen's hands and they're sort of very vascular

She just lent in, it should have been a woman's hands Yeah, just sort of took a black guy or something Just to make it really obvious Why are you wearing nail polish? Yeah So he has him deal black Jack It's a top secret, but it's got to be Yeah, and he asks him what the count is

Like counting cards, you know, how many high value cards have been dealt Put that as a number And Jack says minus 9 And the guy kind of tests him He's like, not minus 10 and Jack sort of sycamas his way out of this and he's like, no, no, always stand by your first count because the odds are you right,

which is something that sounds profound, but isn't. Yeah, this is kind of bullshit. Yeah, it's good. Always stand by your first gender. Odds are you right. No, false. And the guy, and the guy buys this, and Jack internally, stand by his sort of.

Like, I fucking got him. This guy can't count, which I like. This was smart. This was, there are bits of this that are good, but he is also kind of functionally, bratting in his job interview for a job that he doesn't really want and then

there's a few rules that Mr. Reynolds explains to him. First of all, you never gamble anywhere. We will know if you do you don't get to gamble because you're a groupie. Never ask what's in the package. Yeah, no names. Yeah, no names. Don't tell me you're a Frank transporter. It says don't shag

your co-workers, we will know. And then if you encounter a punter outside the casino, do not talk to them. Not just don't shag your co-workers. because don't befriend your co-workers. Like he said, friendships between croupiers are, are discouraged,

which is just so Sigma. Yeah. There's also a bit that's aged phenomenally where Reynolds says, do you have a girlfriend? And he says, yeah. And then he says, is she into gaming?

Is she in the gaming industry? She's not a gamer, no. Fucking noob. Yeah. He takes him to see the security room, which is like full of CCTV cameras. And I think, I think I'm trying to pass this through the lens of like 20 years of distance right this is meant to seem both the surveillance is both is meant to seem expensive and like effective but at the same time the whole effect is kind of tawdry and and cheap not financially but cheap kind of like it's all very like there's lots of sort of gold sort of plating on things and it's a bit sort of it's almost a bit Trump like in some ways.

Jack even describes himself as a voyeur in voiceover. Yeah. Because he's detached. He's a writer studying this world and just looks down on it so much. At one point, Reynolds says, do you want a career in gaming? And he thinks to himself and end up like you. Yeah. As well, he kind of, I mean, we do establish here that like, you could not rob this casino.

This would be an incredibly dangerous thing to do. It would be easier to rob like a thousand banks. and take a penny out of this casino. Yeah. We also see Jack looking at the security and noticing all the security measures and at this point I thought we were getting a very different movie out of this

but I was like, ooh, it's planning to do something cool but now that's just all in his head because he's a fucking lozen. I gotta say, a big rack of monitors feels so much more real when it's CRT, right? Or like the thick-ass monitors. There's one shot where Reynolds shows him video of a cheat that he caught

and the Axif fumbles the VHS tape and tries to put it in the wrong way and they kept that one in and I really like it just a little like Oh, wonderful, yeah, gotcha. But so he's given the job, right? And the pay is really good as well but it just comes with these strings, these conditions.

It's also on a six week delay and he needs money now. He needs money now. He has to sell his car. Yes. The worst thing that can happen to you live in London. Actually, you know, I did not look this up beforehand. It's like an old 60s kind of roads to a thing.

It's an old Austin Martin, I believe. Is it really? I think so. Jesus, they weren't kidding with the Bond stuff. I think I saw the wings, yeah. It's like a knackered one. And he sells it to Guy, I love to see Barnaby Kay. Hello, one scene.

Got on internet movie card database. It is a 1957 Austin Healy. Ah, my bad. Sorry. And also at this point, I am struck. buy something. I recognize croupiers that I have known in my own life. Because when he sells the car, he says to himself in voice

server, hang on tightly, let go lightly. And I knew a guy who used to have that as his catchphrase. One of my acting teachers used to say that a lot. And I was like, oh shit, I've been... I've been crooped. Yeah. The whole atmosphere is

suffused with croupier particles. Every bourgeois contains within him a particle of croupier. So he sells the car and he goes home And my note for this scene says Take a look at Jack Manfred's horrible relationship Because he is in the most stifling Sort of

It's a monogamous relationship That is terrible with Gina McKee off of Brassai And I don't know It seems like it's pretty good on his end Because he gets home to Marion his partner and she has bought new lingerie

and it's like planning a sexy evening with him and I'm like oh that that'd be really nice I'd really like that someone did that for me

On the rewatch this is so transgender right because he's still doing the aloof thing he hasn't turned that off I think it's it's deliberately meant

to be like hangover from doing it in the casino but also it's just how he is of just like I'm sort of above this I'm disinterested in this

I'm sort of like picking up this bra and looking at it kind of dispassionately. And because he thinks he's that much better than her, he's just kind of not interested. And a lot of this feels tremendously repressed. Like the kind of her trying to do something nice and sexy for him really feels like her trying to reach out to him when he is just not comfortable with this kind of intimacy. And the intimacy is all going in one direction. Yeah, there's a moment where she like comes out from the bedroom in a, of nice cocktail dress and like very sexy. And he says, you're all I desire.

Credit to Clive Owen. Obviously not meaning it. Yeah, credit to Clive Owen. And he's just like absolutely not convincing at all. And she's trying everything. She's being like quite sexy. She like blindfolds him and like nibbles his ear and stuff. And he's just like, beep, boop, I got a job in a casino.

He's still fucking thinking about it. He doesn't care about her. He's like, and again, this is interesting. He's got fucking dick dysphoria. Yeah. I think the movie has to kind of direct that into he's still thinking about his only real passion which is croupier ring but like uh yeah it's really transgender it is these two these two are about to have the most perfunctory terrible sex and he's going to dissociate the whole time like actually you know what this is you know what this is this this will slice some of you and not others in the audience you know how you are an egg

but you are the kind of egg who sleeps with a lot of women. Yep, hello, yep. And kind of bolsters the masculinity with that and people will go, oh, that guy must be so good at masculinity because he's like doing so much. He's fucking so many girls. Is the sex any good? No. Are you dissociating throughout all of it? Yes.

Yes. Ah, but subtype of this guy who gets really good at the sex to compensate for that. you just said you study this is it was it good for me no no not at all no oh okay no i'm more with you here now i'm way more with you which of course is like that's that's not important for it to be good sex like was it technically proficient yes okay yeah no learning the rules of sex to be good at it is i'm very with you yeah well that's that's sort of what i mean though yeah that's sort of what i mean is When I say, like, perfunctory, I don't mean, like, he's going to start crying, right? Like, I mean, like, you will get, like, a perfectly adequate sexual performance out of this

that he is not invested at all because he is around the rings of fucking Saturn at the moment that he's actually doing it. Yeah. An actual image I used to use to dissociate with. Mm. Mm. Very, very common. Dissociate this place.

Good place to dissociate. Mm. Not much up, though. Yeah. There's fried wings, though. There's fucking, like, grilled chicken now. That's true. That is true.

Thank you to the People's Republic of China for significantly advancing the cause of human civilization by grilling in space. Anyway, hell yeah. Anyway, shout out to the people in the audience who've just realized their transgender as a result of us explaining that. Yeah. Let's continue talking about the movie group. He tells Marion that he got this job in the casino, and she's like, she is upset by this because they don't need the money.

She has a good job. the sense that she kind of enjoys providing for him while he writes he's working on a novel not the football book an actual like something good that he's going to put his like heart and soul into and she wants to be with a writer not with a croupier

she wants that guy she has a weirdly specific fantasy of what her boyfriend's job must be and it does not encompass crooping. No. But anyway, he's a fucking croopy anyway. He's going to croop with the best of him.

Yeah, he gets a little makeover. He does, he does, which includes a manicure. Lies to everyone about his job. Yes, yes, he does. Again, a thing I used to do. Yes, same. Really classic stuff, yeah. So he's getting his haircut, and the guy making conversation is like,

you know, what do you do for work? and treating that interaction with the seriousness it deserves, understand it to be perfunctory because he is so smart and so Sigma, he's like, I'm an arms dealer insincerely. Yeah. And I'm like, I thought this was cool. I'm sorry.

The real story of this episode is there must have been a few years where, you know, you think I'm insufferable now, there must have been a few years where I was difficult to be around. It seems to actually just a struggle session for November Sort of rivening Yeah No, me too

I also used to just lie about what I did And who I am Yeah It's fun sometimes You know You've got like a brief interaction with someone That you know is going to be time limited To be like

I'll play a character for this You know Yeah And it's also like it's a kind of self-testing Of like you know Liars have to have good memories It's fun Trying to keep track of these things

over the course of a conversation or between multiple conversations lying is fun yeah it's fun free uh but he does go for some weird lies like like you say he says that he's like an arms dealer to the hairdresser it's deliberately provocative yeah and an undertaker he tells the manicurist yeah as he's got his hair sort of like slick back and like dyed black uh which again i thought was very cool and when he goes to the when he goes to the casino there's like trying to flirt with him but he's just sigma mode he's just like no just beep boop yeah his like fucking voice over's like don't talk to the ponters, you know, be efficient, aim for 40 spins per hour, you know, bah, bah. It's very sigma, it's unbelievably sigma.

Listen, if any of you other have seen fucking castration movie Part 1, if you haven't, you should. This guy is just Turner from Castration Movie Part 1. He's just like, beep, I am the great machine. I have no feelings at all. I'm sorry, in a conversation with Creepie, yeah, yeah, yeah. I found. And for him, crooping is mostly about watching gamblers lose. Right?

Because that's most of what gambling is, and he gets to perceive it. He gets to be a voyeur. So he does his first shift, and it all goes very smoothly. It's very slick. He notices that the casino, like, lets you launder small amounts of money. Yes. And he just notes it. He's like, that's odd.

I don't know why they do that. But he's in Sigma mode, so he's not like, doesn't investigate in any way. He just notes it. Yeah, you sort of get... You take your dirty money in, exchange it for chips, gamble by going to a table, don't place any bets, or just place a small one, take all of your chips immediately back, cash out for fresh money. And there's ostensibly nothing in this for the casino, so why do it? Yeah, he's like, it's odd for this, that they let this happen. Yeah.

And there's not really anything in it for us. So after the shift, in the horrible staff locker room. The unisex staff locker room. Yes. as well. This is not a space that protects women and girls. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is a space that endangers women and girls. It's the space where we encountered November for a second time, because Marian kind of looks like November, and now we meet Bella, who looks even more like November. Maybe I was internalizing some things.

Yes, yes. Slightly up in the misogyny score here, because our first introduction to this character is she just gets her tits out. And I'm like, oh. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Fine. Yeah, Bella, who is a also croupier, she's like putting on her dress, and as she does, she describes herself as being like tits in a uniform.

She feels sort of like very similarly dissociative, you imagine. And she says, how do I look? And you get, this is the one place or one of the few places where the noir narration actually pops because you get the narration of like trouble. And I'm like, I'm making the jerk off. motion, but at the same time, I'm having fun. I am smiling.

I do like this kind of thing. Yeah, I'm making the duke off motion, but also like the penis is in the hand as I'm doing it. I am actually jerking. I am masturbating to this, yeah, yeah. But that's not the only croupie she means. It's just sort of a disingenuous to describe it as making the jerk off motion, really. I don't even know what that meant. It's actually just jerking off.

The thing is, if you kind of read it off Bodri-R, you can recognize that what you're doing when you jerk off. is you're just kind of making the jerk off motion. Yeah, it's like symbolism, really. Yeah, yeah, the true jerk contains a seed of the false jerk. So that's not the only croupier that he means. Indeed, there's a second croupier here. Yes, a second croupier strikes the movie. What the fuck is this guy's name?

Matt. Matt. Matt. Yeah. So Matt is a kind of like South London wide boy. Mm. Wide boy. Yeah. He's wide lapels, apart from anything else, is getting off work, is kind of greasy, kind of sleazy, and offers Jack a lift home.

Very nice BMW. Yeah, so there's this one scene of them together in horrible, shitty, after dark South London in this BMW. I remember when it looked like this, and it doesn't look like this now. they're putting up fucking like new build skyscrapers in elephants and castle which is nice now what the fuck happened um I don't know man it's crazy there's this like sort of pounding drum and bass to the point that you can't hear either of their dialogue which isn't intentional but works quite well anyway and it just it's just awful everything about this is awful and you see why in this uniquely 90s british shitness you see why see why Jack is like, I'm actually better than all these people, because it's, there was a lot that was repulsive about that time and that place. And there was a lot that invited you to think

that you were better than people because there was a lot of horrible shit happening. And also, he went to private school. And so that's the kind of mindset that they inculcate you with. Well, exactly. So Man invites him out to the pub and he declines. He goes home instead. And he wakes Marion up, and she notices that he's like fucking wired. He's super tense. He's just so, like, filled with adrenaline from crouping all night. And she says,

she says, oh, I liked your hair back when it was blonde. And he, like, shouts at her. He rebukes her quite strongly over this, for seemingly no reason. He's sort of like back in the grips of an addiction here. It's sort of very much framed that way.

So the next day of the casino, This guy tries to cheat. And Jack... Yeah, he tries to place a late bet on the web. Jack handles this quite smoothly. And this guy kicks off. Reynolds ends up taking him away and paying him. But there's a South African lady at the gambling table

who kind of compliments Jack on how well he handles this. Complements... It's Alex Kingston. It's Alex Kingston, yeah. Doctor Who fans very happy. Girl we like to see. Girl we love to see. Yeah, my note is like, holy shit.

Is that fucking Rivers. song. Yes, it is. It is. She's, she asks, I mean, she has, oh my God. Yeah, she's got the South African accent. Do you know where we're from? Cape Town, by way of South Africa. Cape Town, by way of South Africa. It's not a walk in the park. From the bit of Gallifrey where they give you the South African accent. Actually, the Kruppier would go hard as a Time Lord name.

That's true. It would actually, yeah. It's interesting as well that Reynolds pays off. cheat, who sort of as he's being paid off as like sort of like making the I'm going to kill you gesture to Jack. But like key part of running a casino

is when people try to cheat you, you give away a lot of money to them, right? That's sort of crucial. How is this place making money? Anyway, do you know where I'm from? She's from South Africa. Perhaps I'll take you to my home in Africa. And she tries to tip him.

Yes. And he goes, I'm sorry, we can't accept gratuities in the UK it's different in South Africa where I'm also from and they have a kind of moment of recognition she's like ah I'll be back later in the movie yeah perhaps I'll see you again

I'm going to do the accent every time in order to distract from the fact that I actually find it's quite erotic it can be quite like weirdly you're the second person to serve to me in as many days like yesterday I was chatting to the to the lady who works at like the coffee kiosk near me and she was saying, oh, I love a South African accent.

And I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Anyway, the other thing Jack sees is Matt. It doesn't exist. It's crazy. Matt is cheating. He does, yeah. He's paying out a punta more than he should. He's corrupt.

Yes. Yes. And he fucking confronts him about it, and he does it to him like fucking Don Logan in the car. Like, it just comes to him staring this guy down as he's driving, being like, you were cheating. on the group yeah you get some nice kind of deflection from that of being like no I wasn't you can't prove it and anyway if I did it's no worse than what is happening all the time in our society anyway

yeah you know we live in a society everyone's corrupt all the time you got to loosen up yeah come with me to the worst Greek restaurant in South London yeah and I just put my head in my hands because I've been here. Yeah. There's a gathering of people having a little party, including the guy that we saw Matt paying off, who he's mates with, right? So this is how Matt makes a bit of money on the sign. Lots of guys in like shiny track suits as well.

And you're like, oh, these are criminals. This is a criminals party. Okay. Matt tells us that it's a criminals party. And also a lot of people who just work in the casino business, there's a line where Jack says, what about the girls? And Matt says, just girls. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Okay. But they're gambling. Jack still declines to gamble because he's straight, straight-laced. I don't gamble ever. And here's the thing. This movie, because that convinced me that this is Sigma, prevented me from ever gamble. I have never gambled in my life because at a vulnerable age, I watched Clive Owen play someone smarter than everyone else.

And one of the reasons he was smarter than everyone else is because he doesn't gamble. And I never have. Yeah. I've never gambled in a casino. Incidentally, thank you Clive Owen and Mike Hodges in this movie but so he meets a girl who enters

shots with this took up all of us who enters shot with the longest splip in the fucking world. I thought it was in a cigarette holder. Yeah, it's so good. When I first saw it. Just this massive... Potentially episode

art, yeah. It's like, you don't gamble. Do you smoke? And then just like lifts it comedically into the frame. We get another fucking... Asked to leave the Greek restaurant after rolling a kind of weed hero. We get another fucking transgender moment, though, because he goes into the toilets and sees people shagging and just kind of like curls his lip and disgust of the... Oh, this is gross.

Of the thought of intimacy. And then he just, like, quotes Hemingway in his head, like... Why are you disgusted with so much of the world? Could it be because you're transgender? Yeah, maybe you're disgusted with yourself. yeah maybe you're not actually sigma maybe you're maybe you're just a woman anyway so he goes back to matt and he's like makes his excuses and that's when he quotes Hemingway he quotes Hemingway aloud he's like the world breaks everyone right but afterwards you know many are strong at the broken places

Ernest Hemingway announcing your quotes cunt I've done this One reason why I sort of one reason why I sort of one reason in which the movie redeems itself is Hemingway cell effortlessly mugged by Greek criminal because Matt gets the punchline to this because he turns around in his chair and goes Hemingway wasn't he the one who shot himself cleared effortlessly hell yeah we get another fucking heartbreaking scene when he goes home to Marion because she's She's, she's angry. She doesn't like his new job and they're incompatible schedules and so on. Yeah. He says, you're my conscience. And it's like, oh. Haven't you got one of your own?

Had relationships like that as an egg. It's interesting. It's interesting as well, because while I think that's well observed, I don't think this movie writes women well at all. Not least it's got three women in it. But in this case, it's really like, you'll see this a lot once you start looking out for it. or if you just are a woman, a lot of sort of load-bearing emotional scenes in movies

depend on female character activating bitch mode for no reason. Not, you know, is hurt for a sort of emotionally comprehensible reason or is sort of like angry for any reason that's relatable, but just like, I have decided in this scene to be a bitch and that's like this scene. Yes. Marion is pissed off for a bunch of sort of unreasonable

within the context of the movie reasons. including bafflingly, I want to be dating a writer, not a croupier. I don't even know what that is. Yeah. There's one particular one, which really sort of exposes the tension here, where she's like, she has this, like, kind of class anxiety. We find out she used to be a police officer. Now she's like a store detective, like, you know, like a shoplifting, like security,

like, you know, like fucking Harrods or something like that. And she's like, I, why haven't. got any class, you know, and I don't understand all this, like, fancy gambling nonsense. But it's really weird because what you're then presented with is a working class, a validly working class person who does not understand someone's job not being something they love. Yeah. And she's like, you really have to be a writer, you know?

You've got to become a writer now. Yeah. Start writing words, boy. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but she's not happy, right? When he's out and about the next day, he sees an advert for Cape Town, and Alex Kingston stops by. She's like, oh, shit, hello. Where I'm from.

Yeah. He's there wearing an incredible, massive coat and stupid hat combo. It's really just not too awful. It's really trying to do the film noir stuff. He tries to meet up with his wife. Like at the start of this scene But she's like, look, I'm busy till nine And he's like, oh fuck, I'm on at nine

It's a really funny bit where he just like They go down and down escalator together And she says, no, I'm working And he just goes And goes back up the escalators Like well Really good All right

Really good And then runs into Alice Kinston It's trying to do the kind of double income No kids thing of like Oh, you hardly see each other You live in a shitty flat in like zone one And it does look like his own one as well. Yeah.

You know, like, you get in, they're getting out. And it's like, yeah, that's not bad. But anyway, he runs into Alex Kingston, who is like, I'm from South Africa. I'd like to go to a hotel with me and talk a bunch of absolute shit about South Africa, which they do. We get a scene of two white people kind of psychoanalyzing like the African character as a thing that can be said to exist. Yeah, she's like, oh, it's witchcraft, that's African, and I'm like, is it? White South Africans love to be like, I'm African. It's not a walk in the park.

It's like, okay, I mean, like, but like, you aren't. But like, yeah. Africa's a big fucking place. It can't all be one thing. You can't all be witchcraft. Yeah. It's, I mean, this is 1998. These are the years of the Rainbow Nation, you know, like everybody's like,

I'm not racist now I saw that one film with Fuck, who's an Invectus I saw that one film Invictus or the events that the film Invictus

was based on so I'm not racist now Yeah I like Rugbyso I'm not racist Have you heard of that guy Pia Novelli Yeah

I like him a lot I'm looking forward to watching District 9 in about a decade's time I've got a lot of opinions about the movie Blood Diamond I picked a really

intense gambit here of going I'm really attracted to a South African accent I'm going to do a horrible imitation of one for the whole episode and hope that anyone listening who has one still likes me enough to like tolerate this. Well now South Africans will approach you in a pissed off manner which I gather is what you

want. Oh yeah. Yeah that is what that is what yeah exactly I am Sigma actually so they talk some absolute shit about South Africa yeah they really do they kind of flirt a bit too she's not wearing

a wedding ring and he's like oh is that a wedding ring and she's like it is but I'm not married I have to go now here's my phone number it just keeps the flies off which is cool of which there are a lot in Africa because it's so hot that's what I'm from by the way

to keep the CC flies off but so they they befriend each other and yeah and she's like I'll see you in the casino again. I'll keep doing the accent. I'll see you in the casino again. Yeah. So, goes back to work. It's because he's just face these out just for us, really. He also, like, wears his tuxedo on the tube because he's, like, eager to perform. And he sees a man in the casino

coughing, and he thinks to himself, and this is a quote, the croupier registered disgust. And it's like, he's fucking dissociating. He's like, I saw the roulette wheel spin. He's You ever shift into third person mode? Yeah. Also, when he's on the tube, the tube is horrible, right? Like, it's all too many people too close, too loud, too drunk, sort of firing off, like, party streamers and stuff. And it's like, the tube is fucking awful. Which it can be, sure, right?

We just accept this is part of the thing. The commute sucks. So he gets off work, and as he's leaving, he turns down a lift from Matt. From Bella, in fact. Yeah, and the cheat that he confronted earlier is waiting for him and tries to attack him. And we see that actually as much as Jack gets the shit kicked out of him sort of in ambush, he can fight. He likes to fight and he really, really does not like cheats. And Bella sort of rescues him, she pulls up in her car, seeing him kicking the shit out of this guy.

Yeah, he really goes to town on this guy. Yeah. And it's a good clive Owen delivery, actually. I said that like a football commentator. But as he gets into the cart, there's a kind of like half drunk with violence kind of exhilarated slur. He won't be cheating again kind of thing. And it's just like that's a moment that I like and that it's... It's funny to do movie recaps as a football commentator.

It is funny, though, because it's like this whole movie is him saying stuff that's like meant to sound cool. This is so, like, it's the first one that's, like, obviously weird and uncool and alienating and frightening from the outside, but, like, in the moment, you're so in the adrenaline that you're like, that's my fucking Sigma line, dude. So Bella takes him back to her place and punches him up. And then... We love to write women. Yeah, it's not a great scene.

He grabs her and kisses her extremely forcefully. Very aggressive. And, like, pins her to the ground. And credit to this actress who I think, we've seen this kind of move with Bond before, where the script implies that like, oh, she's kind of into it. And the actress does not sell that. I'm thinking of pussy galore. But the actress does sell both, this is extremely surprising.

And also like, yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. Like, very shocked. But then, okay, sure. It's still a very, very uncomfortable bit in the film. I don't, I don't hate that it's. That, yeah, well, exactly, right?

Like, as a bit of kind of alienation from Jack, I don't hate that it's there necessarily. Yes, that's a good point. I think at this point in the movie, because the movie is, you're stuck with his internal monologue. And if you were 15, you could be left thinking, oh, this is a cool kind of guy to be. I think it's worthwhile to have this in here to make you go, wait, what? No, actually, I don't like that. And I don't like this guy very much necessarily. necessarily. But Bella, Bella is not, so after the sex, Bella's like, I used to do sex work.

Mm-hmm. She's smoking a really long joint, as she says this, by the way. Like five for a long. It's crazy. The joint in this movie is. Yeah, it's unbelievable. It looks like, you know, when women used to have the, like, really long cigarette holders, but she's not using a cigarette holder. That's just all joint right to the end. It's crazy. Used to do sex work. Used to be a dominatrix, in fact. which is I guess sort of meant to be sort of scandalous within the context of the movie Yeah I guess I'm sort of like inured to this Like being in trans circles

I'm just like oh okay cool I know like five people already Hedging from the movie though Where she's like I never let him bust Yeah I'm clean as a whistle I didn't It did genuinely and it sort of

She goes Yeah I just did S&M Nothing weird no blowjobs Because blow jobs were weird in the 90s Yeah like blow jobs are weird it's strange yeah odd yeah

very strange but yeah she's just doing in 1999 she's the sex worker but like the redeemable kind because she didn't actually fuck anyone

just indulged a bunch of perverts weird fetishes and it's like uncophila amazing movie great thanks thanks for that

yeah and so he also has a very low opinion of Matt they talk a little bit about Matt and she tells him that Matt said

I want to fuck the whole world over it's my mission and Jack finds that to be a very inspiring phrase as a writer he's like oh shit like that kind of attitude

would be great for a protagonist it's like okay I'm sure man yeah he starts kind of writing again we see his wife meter go up a little bit here because he's returns as well we see him typing

and she puts the hat on him like again it's still a costume that's being put on him yeah this is the point of the movie where he's narrating things as chapters he starts like

he is yeah also Bella at this point just leaves the movie she's not at work anymore and Jack says she's been written out and we're like what the fuck is happening man yeah there's a lot of distancing

from him at this point it's quite well done interesting interesting so at this point Marion reads a couple of pages that he's written of the book

and she she doesn't fucking like it she's like this sucks because he's writing a novel about a croupier and she's like this guy that you're writing is this your idea of a winner like he's a she says

he's a miserable zombie and then there's no hope in this he's like it's the truth she's like is this a Mary Sue is this fucking self-insert do you think like this and he's like no but if I did it'd be cool

in it the whole world it's like this it's Sigma it's cool actually and she's like this guy's a fucking asshole but you're writing this isn't this is cringe he's cracked

Zoron 1 hope is back like you're no this is not how we do this anymore and then are you washed and then the fucking doorbell rings you can talk to me if you're washed and it's Bella and he yeah he goes to ignore it

he's like we're not we're not gone through your door and Marion insists yeah they do it's Bella Bella who is like thanks for shopping me to the casino and getting me fired because he must well somebody must have told them that Bella was taking drugs she was given a quote

random drug test and obviously the weed that she smoked a couple nights ago showed up and she's been sacked and she openly says as soon as Marion comes to the door your boyfriend

fucked me smoked my dope and shopped me and it's like it's like oh fuck yeah okay great

that's the last thing you ought to happen yeah no Bella's so fucking cool to her credit takes this quite well Bella just walks away

at this point and Marian just says go on then off you go after her and shuts the door on her Brousal she's good

she's good yeah and your book sucks yeah interestingly Marion is the one who moves out not him

and then we see him like stalking her meeting another man for coffee and like kissing him and stuff he also reports Matt at this point

and gets Matt fired yeah he does he's like mad about it he assumes that it must have been Matt who shocked in Bella so he's like tells

he tells his boss about the he's going to fight club as well because it's like his protagonist his self-insert protagonist is named

Jake. And he starts dividing things between Jack and Jake. And all of the more Sigma casino stuff is, it becomes sort of Jake talking. Yeah, he's got a croup sonar. Yeah, it cuts to him in a waterstones and I go, oh, fuck, he's in waterstones. Yeah, it's very obviously waterstones. Unbelievable waterstones. Yeah, yeah, I was like, is this a waterstones or is this like a kind of late period Ossica's, but yeah, he's in Waterstones, and this is where the movie pushes it too far. You remember I mentioned trying to over-extend a central metaphor? Well, this is the bit where he's like, he's looking at all of these books, and he's like, pile them high and sell them fast and cheap.

It's like a casino in here. They're like chips, kind of. Guy who spent the last, like, every last sort of weekday in a casino in any other building. Getting a real casino. Getting a lot of casino vibes from me. Yeah, and I watched this with my girlfriend, and she, after seeing this scene, started doing a bit where any time she saw anything, she would be like, oh, can I have one of those chocolates? Weirdly circular shaped, kind of like a roulette wheel. Every single fucking object.

She was watching this movie doing the jerk off motion, and you were like, that's very kind, but not now I'm at work. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we get another indictment of the British publishing industry because Giles is publishing a kill and tell book by a terrorist. And you know he's a terrorist because he is an Arab man wearing of Kaffir whose name is Abu X, right? And the book is called Death Squad, I think. Habib. Yeah, real bad. Oh, good. It's like, oh, sorry, you're telling me the British publishing industry is, like, kind of voyeuristic and maybe a bit evil. Shocker.

Like a gambling industry. Wow. Make you think, Mr. Joker. Yeah. Giles invites him to an evening in the countryside. And when a guy with that accent invites you to an evening in the countryside, I'm like, swinging. That is swinging. That is going to be...

You're going to be having sex that is weird, Brack, it's bad. Yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be... There's going to be the vibe shift that happens, but it's not going to be... be a good vibe shift you're going to be like you're going to be hunting women through the woods like you know it's going to be not good back it's bad and as we see because he takes yani he invites her um to go with her the south african lady yeah the south african lady and they they begin the vibe hasn't even shifted yet they start but drive out into the middle of the countryside oh by the way she has a black eye she's got like a big black eye yeah yeah and she's like don't worry about it

I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll tell you in a couple of scenes time when the narrative calls for some more drama. She's like, don't worry about it. I just had to fight someone, which is such a great excuse. Like, oh yeah, no worries. Fair enough. Yeah, you know how we do in South Africa all the time? This is how it goes.

Someone hit me, yeah. A normal way to get a black eye. Don't worry. I just got hit in the face. But so before the vibe even shifts doubles tennis at night. There's something really unwholesome about this. Fuck that. Ever since he's sort of flying the kite, he's been isolated and weird.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Giles is quite taken with her. Yeah, she's like, how did he get the black eye? And she's like, how did you get a black eye? And Jack does the thing again of lying to make himself seem more interesting. But he lies in a way to make himself seem more repulsive. Yeah. Yeah.

And this is interesting because, like, I think it's possible to miss this one. I think it's a judgment on Giles, right? I think Jack's judgment of Giles is such that his, he has contempt for him and he believes correctly that if he lies and says, I hit her and I did it for an interesting reason. I caught her in bed with another woman. Then Giles is going to laugh this off and be kind of charmed by it. And as Giles does. Yeah, he does. Giles is not the kind of person who, when his friend confesses to being a domestic abuser to him is, you know, kicks him out of his house.

Or, you know, is even sort of like disgusted. He's like, oh, you are a dark horse. This is sick. Giles is a fucking piece of shit. Yeah. And that's something that Jack has sort of correctly judged him on. So we, we, later in the evening, the vibe still hasn't quite shifted. No.

But we're playing poker with two incredibly beautiful, posh women. And I just love a woman with an accent. Yeah, Jack's like, I won't play, but I will deal. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm fucking Crupier, by the way. Yeah, I'll go Crupio mode.

I'll activate Crupier mode and Crupon, these guys. He, in his head predicts all their moves are going to be, whether they're going to, like, raise or stick or whatever. And then on the final hand, everyone has incredibly unlikely hands. Everyone's like straight, straight flush. Everyone's got flushes and shit. It is the top set, it's the four. set of poker hands in ascending order ending with Yanni. Yeah.

So she wins. And everyone's like, what are the odds of this? And he's like, no, it's 42 million to one. And it's obviously implied that he's cropped it for her. He crooped that shit. Yeah, he's like, sigma cropped it 100%. He's like, yeah, good for him. In the night, Giles is, we can

hear fucking these two women. But, you know, him and Yanni aren't having sex. And in the night, she just wakes him up and says, look, I to explain now, the bruise. Some more plot of the movie has to happen now. She's like, wake up, I lied, we're not having sex. Would you like to be in a heist?

Yeah, would you like to have a heist in this heist movie? Do you like to have a heist? And then she says, I owe money to some really rough people who are planning to rob the Golden Lion Casino, but they need an inside man. And he's like, the movie Inside Man will come up for another eight years. Me and Denzel Washington are going to make that. It's going to be great. But I'm not up for it now.

We've got to wait almost a decade for that movie to come out. Defoe is going to be there too, you know. Yeah, he is being recruited to be an inside man, and all he has to do, it's a full-proof plan. Yeah. Crew-PAs are not honest. You've seen Matt, right? If they see someone cheating, they might just let it slide. We need someone who hates cheats, who is known to hate cheats, who can provoke a distraction by

catching someone cheating and actually making an issue of it. And then, okay, maybe they'll attack you a bit because it's got to look decent But like you get 10 grand If it goes wrong, you keep that 10 grand Nobody's going to be looking at you And then if it doesn't go wrong You get another 10 grand after

There you go It's not a bad plan Necessarily You'll be the distraction And all you have to do is do exactly What you would have done anyway I would say more movie making In the late 90s here

Fully naked Alex Kinsman Yeah, yeah, unnecessary. And I don't get to see Clive Owen's hog. So, like, what's the fucking deal? Yeah, what's the deal there? Ridiculous. This is bullshit, yeah. It's fucking bullshit.

But so he's like, no, this is a terrible idea. Like, you're going to get caught. I've seen the security. It's a gamble, and I don't gamble. Yeah, in his head he thinks Jack wouldn't do it, but maybe Jake de Crupier would do it. Yeah, maybe the fucking Crupier would. Maybe this looks like a job for the Crupier. inventing an incrementally cooler version of myself

called December who does take risks Yeah, he's developing a crime sonar Yeah, yeah My crime sonar December But so he kind of demures on this And she leaves She's got a South African accent for some reason as well

Yeah, she leaves early In the morning He's wearing the hat again He brought the hat with him to the countryside. Leave the hat. Don't bring the hat to the sex party. Maybe that's why he wasn't fucking the posh women was because they saw the hat. And yeah.

But so he sees Giles and Charles is like, how's the football novel coming? And he sort of barks at him. Like, you told me this wasn't going to be work. And he had the sense he's still thinking about it, you know? At this point, he goes home, and something quite interesting happens, he finds a necklace, which is a gift from Marion, and she wants to reconcile. She says, I don't care at all about Bella, and I was wrong about the book, and I want to be with you again. And my notes say, is this real? Because this was such an unexpected turn from Marion.

Yeah. We've been so in Jack's head. It's been so dissociative. This is the point where I started to think, is he an unreliable narrator? Is this fiction? Is he making this up? Yeah.

Genuinely. I think I did too. The first time I saw it. The necklace, by the way, is a little book-shaped locket because you know, what else you get a writer. But on sort of knowledge and belief,

this is real. Yeah. It's like her idea of him as a gift, though. Yeah, I don't know They reconcile Yeah Well, the movie shows us that I'm not sure

I don't know if I believe it But he also gets a call From Alex Kingston And this is the point Where he starts confusing himself Jack and Jake Because he says Jake wanted to see

Alex Kingston So I went over to see her And I'm like You've become the crime You've become the croupier Yeah I'm gonna become the crewier He says to himself

And he becomes the croupier Yeah he goes He goes to this shitty hotel And what looks like Kings Cross to me with like his sort of big stupid overcoat and his stupid hat and he goes to see yani there's a really nice detail in the sound mixing this movie uses noisy neighbors and people making noise in the room next door really effectively to indicate a poor standard of living it's present in his

flat and it's also present in his scene too it's really good as somebody who has very noisy neighbors I'm like yes good that is that is irritating but so she's she's like listen the plans just as it was everything's going to be fine please i need it because i'm in i'm in deep shit and he goes that bruise has cleared up nicely um which i i like this is your vintage noir stuff is guy a little bit slow on the uptake being successfully tricked by woman uh and duplicitous woman you know like it's not good in itself but it's a trope and i it's one that i kind of like is woman who is like outsmarting him he's like you're making the jerk off motion awfully effectively for someone who's got a sore hand

It's almost as if that you're lying to me about the reason for doing this to try and play on my kind of desire to sort of help a woman in need in danger. He's like, it could well be. But he takes it. He gambles. Yeah, he does. And he assures himself that this isn't gambling. Because he's like, in his head, he's like, I'm going to go Sigma mode.

I've got a plan. First of all, I'm going to test the movie. I'm going to test the money to see whether it's real. And secondly, I'm not going to spend any. of it because obviously if this all goes tits up the crime people are going to come to me and they're going to be like we want the money back and he says all right i'm not going to spend it then i'm just going to hold on to it for six months and if they haven't asked for it back at that point then i'm all nice right he's expressing this and gambling odds as well like he is yeah he gets to the sort of six

months and he's like hundred to one yeah anything happens there's also a really interesting moment here where this desperate gambler comes to his table whilst he's at work and he's obviously like sweating and down to his last red scent. And he rigs the game so that this guy wins. And he pays out to him. And then he watches the guy, get up, go towards the casino to cash the chips in, and then go to another table and immediately blow it all and lose it again. And he thinks to himself people don't change.

Like, it's just, he's so misanthropic. Yeah. Which is cool. That's a cool thing to be. Yeah. You shouldn't have a groupie. State here. Yeah.

Or you could transition to sort of like try and relieve yourself of that feeling. Anyway, um... What? He's in his head, he's only calling himself Jake at this point as well. And he watches more gamblers lose. And he opines that gamblers aren't just self-destructive, but like omnidstructive. They're trying to destroy everything around them. To fuck the whole world over.

Yeah. Like, I like this. I think this actually is perceptive as to recognize a misanthropy in a gambling addiction, right? to be like, well, I think I'm better than you, but you also, you want to fuck everything over. You want to sort of like alienate your family and, like, destroy your career and, uh, all of your relationships. And it's like, that's true. That's true of any addiction, really. He even tells Marion, he says gambling isn't about winning money. It's about ignoring reality. Hmm. Yeah, I think that's perceptive. It's a good script in this, in this, in this part.

Yeah, in this bit, yeah. But so he gets a phone call, which he misses. It's on the answer of machine. from Yanni being like, it's time to do crimes now. Yeah, the date for the big crimes is set for tomorrow. And Marion gets this, Marian who used to be a carp. She, like, finds the money as well in the fridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wrapped in.

Got to keep the money cool. Yeah, fair. So they don't want it to go off, you know. And she puts it together and she erases that message, which means it comes as a surprise the next day when... Christmas Eve, Christmas movie. movie? Uh huh?

Yeah, just as much of a claim as die help. Absolutely. He's, uh, it goes into work on the tube. People are sort of like blowing sort of like streamers and stuff and in his ear. It's like really terrible. Yeah. He goes into work, he gets into the tuxedo and he puts on like a paper crown. I like the sort of the slight touch of the absurd here.

Like Mr. Reynolds is wearing a Santa outfit. And you get a lot of, a lot of shots of, um, um, just guys guys on every corner you know like a lot of sort of sharp looks and milling around

as he as he takes his table and a guy does the same thing he places a late bet and without even really he like catches him yeah he's not even

thinking about it it's not clear if he doesn't he just like sees it and goes that's a late bet yeah there's a funny detail

here which is that the criminal here isn't a very good actor in universe where he stands up as like, are you saying I'm cheating? How about you? And like, oh! And I like attacks it. It's in a really

funny way. It's a nice, you know. Yeah. We see as he's getting his shit kicked out of time. That knave. Which is, we see through a couple of rooms, he really is getting the shit kicked out of family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some really good mirror work in this in this movie because

there's lots of it in the casino. So you get like, flexion. of him getting this shit kicked out of us. You see just like another two guys with guns behind the sort of like in the sort of cage with the money and so there's this one gambler

Mr. Sye I want to say again this movie does like Mysterious Asian a bit here which I don't love a little bit but he is like one gambler he's like a sort of returning thing has a crush on Bella as well and is sort of like

close with Mr. Reynolds and has a bodyguard in the casino and you see him have a word with his bodyguard and of course we'd actually know whether or not it's the police or just sort of rival gangsters but in pretty short order the robbers are sort of overwhelmed and and sort of brought out with their hands up while Jack is sort of like coughing up parts of his lung on the floor so the robbery has not gone well no but the next day is Christmas day and he's in hospital and Marion comes to his him and it's like hey i know you're the croupier from the movie croupier yeah you need to stop you need to give up being spiderman you got to stop being the croupier you got to stop being the croupier

if you don't stop being the croupier i'm gonna fucking turn you in yeah i'm gonna call the crazy this is this is some sunderey behavior from mary yeah yeah a little bit um like i say she's got very specific opinions on what job her boyfriend can have and she i i don't know i i sort of like to write a novel or i will call the cops If you don't write a fucking novel There's an argument here about sort of like refusing to sort of face reality That this is also

She is also internally monologing Because she has a very specific fantasy of herself And she needs him to sort of conform To that specific fantasy Which is my boyfriend is blonde Even though it doesn't look good on him And he's a writer I can almost see that

But so she she sort of leaves him With a thing of Chinese food and it's like, if I can told you, quit your job. Otherwise, I will call the police. Yeah. Reynolds gives him sick pay. And he's like, well, you know, take some time off. I hate to lose you.

He keeps writing the novel. And then at 2 a.m. one morning, he's wearing the tuxedo as he's writing. At 2 a.m. he gets a knock on the door. And he thinks to himself, here we go. It's the criminals. They're going to want the money back, but I'm so fucking Sigma. I'm prepared for this. I'm ready to go.

All I'm going to do is give them the fucking. Money back, opens the door Oh hello officer Mm-hmm It's the fucking cops Yeah and not only is it the cops But it's not It's not the cops here to arrest you

Because that cop isn't wearing his hat That's a cop who's there to tell you The genuinely surprising twist in the movie Marion is fucking dead Yeah Marion was killed in a hit and run It's a hit and run It's not clear what the motive was

could have been revenge it could have not been it could have been random it could have been a fucking drunk driver like we've no no idea at all and then the detective comes in and he's like hey Marion mentioned something to me about a robbery at the casino could this be connected and Jack's like I don't know I don't give a shit

fuck off and he's like oh by the way I was in love with her yeah the detective is the guy that he when he was stalking Marion he saw her going home with and kissing yes Yes. Yes. And that's, yeah, Marion dead. R.I.P. Marion fucking dead. Right. Dead. Yeah. Genuinely, like, did not see that coming at all. No, what did I?

Like, fully, fully fucking took me out. And again, at this point, I'm like, is this really happening? Mm-hmm. Yeah, what's going on? He finishes the book. The book is called I. Crupeier, which fucking sucks. Yeah, stupid fucking name. I'm making the check off motion, and nobody's dick is in my hand. Yeah. He doesn't give it to Giles

He's like, feels weird at this stage to give it to Giles What he does is another real Everything is gambling moment He's like he had selected He's doing it in third person narration He had selected a publisher at random Which they let you do I think They don't need an agent or anything

You just kind of send to a publisher Are just waiting for your call You can't yeah You can call random house That's why they're called that The Casino or as I like to call it The Random House Nice, nice

A guy wearing a toxedo in a casino Penguin Random House Um Mm-hmm Pretty good Hashette Um so Yeah he just Galbraiths it

He just like He sends it out anonymously The gigantic spliff or the hashette There we go Okay Okay so I got two or three Depending on how you count Publishing jokes out of that

Um Feeling pretty good about this So the The book is a huge success, right? And we've got to talk about how this movie perceives books and how it perceives authors, right? So, for this... It's not sure what it thinks an author is. For this movie, an author is someone who is like, it's crazy, right? Most people aren't sentient or, like, and are sort of only temporarily elevated to sapiens by reading books, which are written by, you know,

people with interiority and human souls. And so, like, multiple times when he's on the tube, He's like he knew he would be a writer and get in people's heads and make them feel things But most of what people are reading is like shit, it's like self-help stuff or whatever doesn't mean anything But he sees people reading his book about croupying and he's like yeah, how to be a croupier Yeah, he's he's like done something he's achieved something he's sort of like made people think for the first time Yeah, it's an international bestseller one thing I do like and this was heartbreaking to me at the time as someone who's sort of fancied herself a writer and on similar grounds of sort of arrogance and misanthropy was he has this realization which I like that he is he is a one book writer he doesn't have

another one in him there's no second novel he's not this isn't a career he has he had one book and that was it and I like that I thought that was heartbreaking um he puts it in a gambling metaphor though he's like I'm quitting while I'm ahead yeah he does nothing with the money He still lives in the same fucking flat It's all completely anonymous as well He just gets the bars taken off the windows He's just Yeah

He doesn't change anything He doesn't even get to grow up for it And again at this point I'm like Is this really happening This is your kind of fantasy This seems like a weird fantasy ending That like oh I got one over On everyone else

But nobody knows it though It's the thing We gotta talk about racism again Because he goes to the Greek restaurant Where he meets As far as I can tell The only person of California in the movie.

I believe you might be right. A black woman named Lucy who identifies herself to him as a witch, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Again, Africa is not all witchcraft. And to be clear as well, that this is a British woman. She speaks with like a London accent.

And she's like, yeah, I'm a witch. I'm a white witch. And he's sort of very drunkenly. He's like, are you going to put a spell on me? But she takes him home in his car because she bought it. And sort of punchline of this, as she paid sort of significantly more than he sold it for. But again, you get a sort of well-delivered, like, he is drunk off his ass.

He's like, this is a nice fucking car. He's pretty good, yeah. You get that sort of like a little mantra again of like hold on tightly, let go lightly. And he sort of like he has let go of his car, his one material possession. because earlier with Marion she's like what do you need the money for he's like

I wanted to buy a car because I fucking hate getting the tube I hate public transport It's like you had the car man You had a car But it's all justifications And in the end he doesn't buy a car He doesn't replace it

You know And he just lets go of it So he gets a phone call from Yanni who's like great job sorry it didn't work out but you know

seems to have been okay in the end keep the money yeah keep the thing okay got someone here wants to talk to you yeah your dad is on the phone it's your dad it's like great work helping out with my heist bitch

yeah also I'm engaged to Yanni just just want to let you know that I am having sex with Alex Kingston with the South African accent So that's fair You know what I would be ringing everyone too Down the contact list

genuinely just really like I just wanted to like you know I'm not inviting you to the wedding or anything You just need to be aware of this And so the whole thing was a setup Yeah all of his success It happens because his dad rigged the game for him Yeah

And he gets kind of wistful about this He's like his dad was still rigging stuff for him And it's like sorry did did you your dad maybe killed your your girlfriend it's probable he maybe had your girlfriend killed yeah and also all the success you thought you had was because your dad arranged it for you

none of your success was real and then also Bella is now here yeah this is a bit I fucking hate he gets yeah this is like all right there's one woman left in the movie right at the ending a consolation girlfriend fucked up again this makes me question like is this really happening or is he just fucking gone off the croupie A deep end now? And he's just like, yeah.

And then my, my bitch girlfriend came back and said she loved me. But then she was killed. She died in a way that made me look cool and deep. But then my cool girlfriend who takes drugs and used to be a dominatrix came back, actually, for no reason that is explained. And it's like, is this real? Is this it? Or is just fucking demented?

Yeah. But it is. We have no sort of alternative. But to conclude, I think, that it is. It's just that this is, that's the movie. I don't know. I like the reading that at some point during the movie. We're just in kind of fiction land,

especially once he starts giving himself a different name and stuff. Like, I think he's lost in the source at this point. Yeah. But that's, that's croupier. I think he's alone making the jerk off motion. Yeah. I think as avenge sevenfold said, he who makes a croupier out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a woman.

That's so true. That is so true. And I lived that for a number of years. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. God. You are transgender.

You listening to this right now are transgender. Me? Yeah. You must. You must transition. I'm sorry, you have to. Billions must transition. Yes.

Yeah. You think you're cisgender listening to Kill James Bond. Do you know how unlikely that is statistically? That's crazy. Yeah. I don't gamble. Don't gamble. That's creepy.

That's not part of being Sigma is not gambling. Putting one of those progesterine pills on a roulette wheel, that'd be kind of funny. That'd be hard, actually. A film I thought was really, really cool when I was 15, which is the type of movie that that is. I love watching that kind of movie, though. It's always like, oh, man. Yeah, I did too. I feel like I learned a bit about you from this November.

Oh, thank you. I mean, yeah, I think there is, there's the, There's definitely a lot of me in it. And, yeah, directed by the same guy who did Get Carter and Flash Gordon. So, it's, I don't know. Oh, yeah. Written by the same guy who wrote The Last Samurai, too. No shit, really.

Huh. Well, anyway, it's, it's a bad movie in a lot of ways. It's a cringe movie in a lot of ways. It's got some real problems with women. It's pretty fucking racist. Yeah, but we could calculate the exact odds on that right now. That's true. That's true.

We can't, yeah. We've got fucking maths. It's called The Scum System. It stands for Smam, Cultural and Sensitivity, Unprovoked Violence and Misogyny. And the dealer must draw to 16. How, on a scale of 0 to 7, which I think is some form of Bacara, how smami is croupier. And it's got to be... It's pretty fucking high, but...

Yeah. to tell you. Like, it's fucking, incredibly, incredibly. I almost want to put it in the punitive zone as well. Yeah, me too. I could go as high as eight. I would go to eight. I would go to eight.

Let it right at eight. Yeah. Sounds good. Cultural and sensitivity. All Greeks are criminals, which I'm not thrilled about. Yeah. Get a really clean voice drop of that from me. There is one.

Yeah, that's going in the folder. I believe there's, oh no, there's two. Number one. There's two names. Characters of Color, there's Lucy the Witch, and then there's the Chinese Gambler Man, I guess. Oh, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. His only role is to lust after Bella and to be a kind of criminal linchpin of the heist getting foiled. And it's, you know, you never like to use the word inscrutable, but that is ultimately what they're doing with him in this case, I think.

Yeah. I think it's pretty fucking bad. Oh, and also the terrorist bookwriter. that's pretty bad The terrorist book writer Holy fuck yeah That's pretty bad All of the the two white people

Talking to each other About the kind of witchcraft of Africa That alone's got to boot it up From a mission into like five Yeah Five Yeah And that's generous I think

Unprovoked violence This is an interesting one Because he does beat the shit out of that cheetah But I guess Does the movie ask us to believe That this is cool I think we're all supposed to be like Yo group here

Yeah, come down, calm down. When he's doing that. Yeah. I'm not sure. It's, I'm genuinely not sure on this one. Does this movie want us to think Clive Owen is cool or not? That's a question for the ages, really. Yes, I think it does.

I think it wants to have its cake and eat it, it's the thing. It wants us to take all of the criticism of him. But then be like, ultimately this is, this is kind of cool, you know? In which case, I have to, I think that probably gets marked down as unprovoked violence. So in that case, it's got to be like a one or a two then. Yeah, two, three. Two, I can see two. Yeah.

All right. And finally, misogyny. Hmm. So this is, this is interesting. We have three whole different types of women. We've got sex worker who is, former sex worker who is a bit abrasive, but will ultimately like come good in the end. Yeah.

And she's not the bad kind of sex worker who actually had sex. She's just the kind of the cool kind who enhances your cool. by having been a dominatrix. Yeah, we have exotic foreign woman Mm-hmm. Who is like fan fatale and who is like playing you. Mm-hmm.

And we have sort of good woman brackets kind of a bitch. Who has to die? Like... Who dies and also is not seen naked whereas the other two are. Yeah. And also she comes back

even though she has no reason to and also assuming that those events are real and then we're supposed to believe that Jack, Jake is as an authentic narrator. Also, you get your cool drugs, your weed smoking girlfriend back at the end as well. Yeah. Not great. Not great. It's not phenomenal, is it?

It's very transactional. It's very, like, rewarding. Very 90s. It's very kind of male fantasy. Yeah. Five, six? Do we want to go higher? Well, if we put it as six, we come to 21, which is kind of funny.

Hell, yeah, six, yeah. All right, cool. Well, is that scientific? But it's not scientific, no. I would have gone for six anyway. Okay, well, in that case, it is... Sure. Yeah, I probably was going to...

It's scientific to put your finger on a scale. It does come to 21, and that is Blackjack. That is Blackjack. Yeah, like the movie, 21. Any awards? No. I don't think so. Cronstein's...

Nobody goes above and beyond for the cause of villainy, particularly. Nobody goes above and beyond for the cause of goodness either, I guess. No. Tragic, tragic. Sad to say. That's the croupier. That's the croupier. I'm glad we watched that.

That was entertaining at least. It was fun. I'm really glad. I'm really glad. I've looked back and faced some of my own cringe. And so thank you for not just the therapy that I don't have to pay for, but the therapy that I get paid for. Yeah. Allow the cringe to pass through you.

And when you turn back, it will no longer be there. Only, only me, brackets, woman. I will remain. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for joining us for this. Our next bonus episode, is that going to be my pick? No, it's mine, in fact. Our next bonus episode is, yeah, it's obvious pick.

Come on. It's going to be the zone of interest. Let's get interesting. Let's get the fucking about Glazer. We have, we've been glas and glazer. I also have one, listeners, if you know, the zone of interest, not a very funny film. I do have one extremely funny thing to say about it, though, which we will get to. okay we'll brace ourselves for the one joke um our next main line episode i have a suggestion

yeah go for it hit me reckon hit me well so i have i have two options here right we could stay on casinos and i could do either bob le flomber or le circle ruche um one of the two like french sort of gambling heist movies which would be on the list anyway or we could take a we could take a turn here and i could show us something that i really think is i want to make the kind of moral lynch pin of robbery season the bicycle thieves so up to you really I worry about

having the Holocaust hour and bicycle thieves I think we should try to find something lighter-hearted let's do Bob Leflombelle It's a good film it's a nice short film Just to keep the balance Because the whole season let it ride Baby let it ride

Hell yeah Sometimes you have to roll the hard six thank you so much for listening Sometimes you bust Sometimes you bust Yeah Sometimes you have to Roll the hard

307 Please subscribe to the Patreon Because I think that's gonna be a great episode I think they all are To be honest I'm proud of all of them And thank you for listening to this And we'll see you next time

Bye everyone Bye Bye Bye Thank you episode of Kill James Bond. The next free episode in two weeks' time is Bob Leflambere. If you have to look that up, I don't blame you, I did too.

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