The Card Counter
Revenge thriller by Paul Schrader (First Reformed) about an ex-military interrogator who reinvents himself as a professional gambler on the American poker circuit.
Ex-military man William Tell counts cards and wins enough to make a living from gambling. With his trips to the casino, he flees from his past. Tell tortured prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison, and was himself imprisoned for eight years for doing so. His lonely existence is broken by Cirk, the son of a soldier who committed suicide out of conscience because of the torture. Cirk wants revenge on the major who instigated his father’s torture and asks Tell for help. Tell sets off with Cirk, hoping to change his mind and find redemption himself. Linda, who finances Tell's gambling, accompanies them.
With THE CARD COUNTER, Hollywood veteran Schrader again makes a film about a man struggling with his conscience. En passant he puts his finger on the sore spot of American guilt about the torture after 9/11.