Well, Croupier certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but that wasn't precisely it. This was... less ascetic? I wasn't expecting something quite so mundanely sordid. But it was very satisfying indeed. A movie that ran on vodka and cynicism. My kind of flick.

Mr Owen, our delightful lead, was not, however, in possession of as delightful a voice as I was led to believe. Yes, it was smooth, it was verging on the sensuous, it wouldn't be turned back if it wanted to whisper a few sweet nothings or lewd suggestions in my ear, but it doesn't make the top ten list. It certainly doesn't deserve the Sean Connery comparison made in one review. It was nowhere near that good.

However, as a quote from the official website declares, there is some similarity between Owen and Connery. It's in his dark quiet. In the sitting, watching, of the predator even if Owen's Jack is a behavioural, conceptual, predator (a writer - and yes I did see myself in Jack now and then; a writer and a Gemini, how could I not?) as opposed to Connery's Bond, the actual, physical predator.

Most enjoyable. Not high art. Not spectacular, but good. Unusual. The sort of film that should be made more often in preference to, say, half the stuff Hollywood turned out this year.