A return to a more straight forward giallo, The Card Player hints at a return to form for the Italian maestro of horror and suspense but doesn't quite go far enough. A serial killer is on the loose (hoorah!), kidnapping women and challenging the Roman police to play online video poker for their lives…..and various appendages. On the trail of this sick puppy is Anna Mari (Stefania Rocca), the police woman first introduced to us in The Stendhal Syndrome who appears to have quite a few mental problems of her own, and British police liason John Brennan (Cunningham). The direction is inventive and crisp, the acting better than usual, especially from the two leads, and there is enough of Argento's genius to make this film an above average addition to the serial killer/police procedural genre. However, where Argento really shines is in detailing the minutiae of violence and death and there just isn't enough of that in this film, in making The Card Player more palatable to audiences he has also made it more pedestrian.