“Mississippi Grind” was one of my favorite love stories of the year right up until it decided it wasn’t a love story at all.
What propels this sometimes meandering gambling road trip flick is a tremendous chemistry between Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds as a pair of bromantic gamers of chance.
Gerry (Mendelsohn) is an Iowa real estate agent by day and a poker junkie by night, on a first-name basis with just about everyone at the local casino and not too bad at his handiwork. When he meets the free-wheelin’ Curtis (Reynolds), it’s a magical occurrence, both feeding off the other. Their misplaced faith in each other, convinced of some form of immutable luck in their bond, leads them to travel down the Mississippi River for higher stakes in New Orleans.
In many ways, “Grind” is tremendously formulaic. These kindred spirits are wildly passionate in their platonic way, raconteuring back and forth the way only middle-aged poker hall vets can — right up until their luck runs out and the story takes on a somber tone and they begin opening up on their love lives and their many losses, succinctly and straightforward.
“What happened?” Curtis queries about Gerry’s divorce. “She left,” Gerry replies. That’s it. The only time these men spend on reflection is when they get ahead enough at the table to think about making reparations for their past transgressions. Gerry is a gambling addict, but “Grind” doesn’t hammer away at that fact. Nor is it terribly concerned with the extent to which Curtis is enabling his destructive behavior — only that Gerry’s singular focus on winning begins to harsh Curtis’ buzz when the bad beat arrives.
There’s no dismissing that these guys are enamored with each other, but their relationship bends and twists along their trip with very low stakes and little invested in whether they remain friends — “the journey’s the destination,” as Curtis opines, laying out a solid, dialogical defense of the loose construction of “Grind.”
Co-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (“Sugar,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story”) borrow more in terms of overall tone than structure from Alexander Payne, replacing the vineyards of “Sideways” and the Midwestern plains of “Nebraska” with a series of riverfront towns. They depict Curtis and Gerry’s roadshow to the Big Easy with proliferate shots to introduce each new city. Fleck and Boden expertly curate the geographic atmosphere of these locales: Ted Drewe’s iconic eatery in St. Louis, the Central Library in Little Rock, and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. It’s an exercise in Americana that suggests deep thoughts about the fortunes of a nation set against the misfortunes of our lead characters — to the point that it nearly deflates the character drama by lingering as long as they do on where it all happens rather than what’s happening.
The expenditure also feels like it shortchanges some of the subplots that “Grind” offers, including Curtis’ escort girlfriend Simone (Sienna Miller), and Gerry’s mysterious benefactor (Alfre Woodard) who comes to collect what he owes in one scene, then is never seen again.
But Mendelsohn and Reynolds together are the main attraction, their effortless interaction more than making up for a sizable list of minor grumbles over the lack of any real new narrative territory covered. If you’ve seen Robert Altman’s “California Split,” you’ve seen the best of this story and then some. But Mendelsohn is one of the best actors working these days, and Reynolds reins in his charming-cum-smarmy ways just enough to pair excellently against Gerry’s desperation.
“Mississippi Grind” is rated R. One hour and 48 minutes. Three and a half stars out of five.