Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 3, 2015

Virtually every one of the United States has some form of gambling available, whether it be its own state run lottery, the multistate offerings like Powerball or Mega Millions, or casinos run by various Native American tribes and the like. Unless you happen to live in one of the very few states without any of these “opportunities”, chances are you’ve seen the ads urging people to “gamble responsibly,” many formulated around scenes of individuals who obviously don’t have control of their desire to play the numbers or pull the lever on an appropriately named one armed bandit. Those wanting a longer form warning about the incipient dangers of gambling may well want to check out the somewhat meandering but emotionally powerful Mississippi Grind, a film which posits Ben Mendelsohn as a poker player named Gerry who is convinced his seemingly perennial losing streak is bound to end soon. That hope is magnified once he meets a charming younger guy named Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) whom Gerry comes to believe is something akin to a living rabbit’s foot. Mississippi Grind plays like a somewhat languid road movie, building its loose limbed structure out of a series of vignettes as these two supposed brothers in arms slowly reveal their backgrounds as they take off together on what Gerry hopes will be a substantial payday in New Orleans. The film is deliberately frayed from a narrative standpoint, allowing the actors to fully inhabit roles that require as much reacting as actual acting, and that proclivity may end up at least slightly alienating some viewers who may wish for a more directional story arc.

Perhaps somewhat predictably, Gerry’s gambling “problem” has left a trail of emotional debris in its wake, as Mississippi Grind slowly but surely begins detailing. While still supposedly gainfully employed as a real estate agent, the fact is that Gerry is deeply in debt (Alfre Woodard has a great cameo as a cool but calculating loan shark), and he seems to be intent on only digging himself an even deeper hole with his inability to stop betting on poker (and, later, other games of chance). That said, Gerry is obviously not completely cavalier about this unfortunate habit, as evidenced by the kind of funny CDs he repeatedly listens to in his car which are ostensibly educating him on how to recognize various “tells”.

Initially at least, Curtis seems to be something of a golden boy by comparison. Where Gerry is haggard, unkempt and emotionally unbalanced, Curtis seems to be the very model of affability and persuasive abilities. That may lead some to come to an early conclusion that Curtis is in fact a grifter, but it’s to the credit of the screenplay by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (who also co-directed) that the film actually takes a less expected arc, ultimately detailing some of the cracks in Curtis’ own psyche.

While the interrelationship between this putative odd couple provides a lot of Mississippi Grind’s kind of hangdog appeal, it’s in various vignettes with females that some of the most, well, telling character traits are offered. Curtis has a kind of sweet on again, off again relationship with a St. Louis woman named Simone (Sienna Miller). Gerry also hooks up with a friend of Simone’s, a naif named Vanessa (Analeigh Tipton), serenading the innocent young girl with a piano rendition of Erik Satie’s Gymnopodies, but it’s actually a brief but devastating scene between Gerry and his ex-wife Dorothy (Robin Weigert) which finally reveals the depths to which Gerry has actually sunk.

There are a number of cinematic antecedents which either intentionally or unintentionally inform at least parts of Mississippi Grind. In the no doubt intentional category, 1974’s Karel Reisz opus The Gambler probably springs first to mind, and in fact that film’s scenarist James Toback shows up here in a cameo. Other films that deal with gambling at least tangentially, including another 1974 outing, Robert Altman’s California Split, tend to be recalled in terms of general plot dynamics if not in actual tone (Boden and Fleck are decidedly less whimsical, not to mention twee, than Altman can be). But there are at least arguable connections to other quasi-road movies like Hard Times, where the investigation into various characters’ inner lives tends to motivate the story more than any histrionic plot mechanics.

Both lead performers offer nicely lived in performances, with Reynolds playing off of his innate charm and matinee idol good looks with a kind of vulnerability that makes Curtis a surprisingly nuanced character. The film belongs largely to Mendelsohn, however, with the actor offering a beautifully rumpled, sad but resilient take on a problematic character. There’s both (relative) triumph and (relative) tragedy on hand (no pun intended) throughout Mississippi Grind, and in fact if the film is to be faulted in terms of its overall arc, it’s that there never seems to be the kind of catharsis that Boden and Fleck seem to be aiming for. While both characters perhaps (perhaps) come to a greater understanding of what motivates them, the film’s closing moments seem to suggest that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mississippi Grind is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The kind of retro-70s ambience which suffuses a lot of Mississippi Grind is brought to the fore visually courtesy of actual, honest to goodness, old fashioned film being used for this production. That gives a lot of this presentation a nicely burnished, amber and honey colored, appearance that offers a lot of depth and texture. The look here is never razor sharp, certainly by design, offering a kind of appropriately gritty environment that mirrors the hardscrabble emotional lives of the two main characters. That said, in brighter lighting and especially in close-ups, detail and fine detail are quite striking and precise looking. Quite a bit of the film takes place in the shaded environs of places like casinos, and there's a bit of murk and lack of shadow definition in some of the less well lit sequences.

Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mississippi Grind's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is often nicely immersive, though just as often rather subtle about it, placing quieter sounds like ambient crowd chatter in casinos softly in the rear or side channels to help create sonic depth. Other scenes like a sequence at a racetrack offer more opportunities for less nuanced surround activity, and here the track offers a bit more energy, as it also does when a glut of source cues play. Otherwise, though, the film tends to play out in rather intimate, and at times surprisingly hushed, dialogue scenes, where there may not be a wealth of surround activity, but where fidelity remains excellent and all elements are offered with precision and smart prioritization.

Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Two of a Kind: On the Road with Mississippi Grind (1080p; 17:28) is an appealing enough EPK with some good interviews and behind the scenes footage.

Mississippi Grind Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mississippi Grind offers two exceptional characterizations, but those are in service of a somewhat haphazard tale that never quite provides a consistently winning hand. Still, the film is quite emotionally involving and there are a number of exceptional vignettes that all of the performers tear into with considerable (if low key) relish. Technical merits are strong, and Mississippi Grind comes Recommended.