Quendrith Johnson

Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

Mark Wahlberg sits in a director’s chair on stage to a packed house at The Dolby Theater after the world premiere of his new film The Gambler at AFI Fest presented by AUDI, and says “there are four pictures on the wall in my basement. Steve McQueen, Jimmy Cagney, John Garfield… and James Caan. I wanted him (Caan) to see The Gambler. He comes over to my house, sees the pictures on the wall, and says ‘Did you put this up just because I was coming over?’ I said ‘No!’”

James Caan, like the rest of us, loved this film for reasons which we’ll get into in a moment. But the most remarkable thing about Wahlberg’s big give here is… John Garfield? Really?

Garfield the human bullet who starred opposite Gregory Peck in Gentleman’s Agreement? The blacklisted 5’7” powerhouse from the Lower East Side of New York who had a heart attack and dropped dead after being falsely accused of being “UnAmerican, a Communist” by HUAC during the Red Scare in the 1950’s? The John Garfield who was “only suspended 11 times” by the studios?

That Wahlberg mentions Garfield is kind of touching at his AFI tribute, because John Garfield never even came close to how ‘huge’ the former Marky Mark has become.

With The Gambler, to be released on Dec. 19, Wahlberg just flipped the cards on the Oscar race for Best Actor, and crushed it. 

John Garfield may have had the stocky, joking, hyper-male charisma of his future fan from Boston, but he never had Wahlberg’s talent because in this film he literally becomes someone else.

Which is why it is so weird watching the tribute reel screened 40-plus feet high of all the films Mark Wahlberg has been in after seeing The Gambler. Mark was in all those benchmark movies, 1995’s The Basketball Diaries with Leonardo DiCaprio, Boogie Nights, The Fighter, The Departed…

But it’s not Mark Wahlberg in The Gambler, it is some other guy, Jim Bennett. (He has even changed his voice for this role. No accent, slightly higher pitch, consistent throughout.)

That would be James Bennett, the stylish slim-fit upper-middle class college professor who is about to rip the heart out of his mother (Jessica Lange) while he flirts with self-sabotage, and likely suicide by card game. 

And if you raise an eyebrow when you find out Jim is a Literature Professor (in caps) by day, wait; Wahlberg, who admits “I never finished school after the eighth grade, but I did go back and get my GED,” makes you believe it.

Director Rupert Wyatt makes this film almost lyrical in the quiet shots that blend like musical notes into each other, the solo isolation shots that make it art. It feels stylish, intelligent, and draws us in like a sonata.

You want to think this film homages a literature professor like David Foster Wallace, literary giant/author of “Infinite Jest” and one of the coolest professors ever to teach. Sadly, he actually did commit suicide in 2008. But you get the feeling screenwriter William Monahan, who penned The Gambler knows about something about “Infinite Jest.”

Monahan is usually referred to as the guy who won an Oscar for screenplay for The Departed.

Now he will be known for The Gambler: it’s a Top 10 film of the year, Best Actor nod and possible win, and Jessica Lange along with John Goodman just make it jazz.

Go see The Gambler on Dec. 19, don’t be surprised if it wins some hardware this year, and watch if Mark Wahlberg doesn’t make a John Garfield biopic within the next couple years.

More from AFI Fest presented by AUDI…

Next up The Homesman for Tommy Lee Jones, a Bradley Cooper/Clint Eastwood sneak peek at American Sniper & more.

*The Gambler (2014) is a 40th anniversary reboot of The Gambler starring James Caan from 1974.

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