Traveller – Die Highway-Zocker (1997)

Traveller – Die Highway-Zocker: Directed by Jack N. Green. With Bill Paxton, Mark Wahlberg, Julianna Margulies, James Gammon. A man joins a group of nomadic con artists in rural North Carolina.

“This could have been an interesting movie but it didnu0026#39;t live up to its promise. For one, the u0026quot;travelleru0026quot; culture of itinerant Irish grifters is explored very sketchily, if at all. The violent climax seems like an import from a totally different kind of movie. The only really entertaining scam was the one that Bokky and Pat pull on Jean, the bartender Bokky ends up falling for. The rest were either so simple as to be dull (the phony sealant, the trailers) or so complex you couldnu0026#39;t follow them (the scam involving the Turks). There are much better movies about con men; u0026quot;House of Gamesu0026quot; is probably my favorite.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe acting alone makes u0026quot;Travelleru0026quot; worth watching. Bill Paxton is very good as Bokky, a likeable rogue with a sincere face and an awakening conscience, and he credibly conveys his growing love for Jean; his anguish when he has unwittingly put her in grave danger is palpably and painfully real. Julianne Margulies brings warmth and spunk to her potrayal of Jean, and the romantic chemistry between her and Paxton is undeniable. Mark Wahlberg, in one of his first u0026quot;realu0026quot; roles, projects just the right mix of boyish vulnerability, charm (in the scenes where heu0026#39;s romancing Kate, the clan bossu0026#39;s daughter), and cool-dude moxie. As the old grifter u0026quot;Double D,u0026quot; James Gammon is a lot of fun to watch whenever heu0026#39;s onscreen.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnfortunately, the screenplay doesnu0026#39;t do enough to develop the two main characters. For instance, Bokky seems to have a good heart; yet heu0026#39;s been conning people for years (not even siphoning some extra cash from rich people for whom itu0026#39;s merely a drop in the bucket, but cheating poor and ignorant folk — in some cases, cheating them out of their lifeu0026#39;s savings), and somehow it never bothered him until he met Jean. That doesnu0026#39;t make much sense. As for Pat, I think the film should have told us more about his life u0026quot;on the outside.u0026quot; We gather that heu0026#39;s poor and doesnu0026#39;t have too many opportunities (though heu0026#39;s dressed nicely enough when he arrives for his fatheru0026#39;s burial), but itu0026#39;s still hard to understand exactly why heu0026#39;s so eager to be a part of the u0026quot;familyu0026quot; and to join a lifestyle in which his choices, even about things as basic as whom to marry, will be severely restricted, or why he thinks itu0026#39;s so terrible that Bokky risks being excommunicated from the Travellers. (Bokkyu0026#39;s on-the-road life certainly doesnu0026#39;t look like being u0026quot;on top of the worldu0026quot; to me.) Patu0026#39;s relationship with Kate is treated as an afterthought, maybe a plot device to give him a reason to come back to the Travellers camp.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBecause of these flaws, the character development that could have been the strongest part of this movie never really gels. The shaky plot structure, especially toward the end, compounds the problems.”