Ballad of a Small Player had its Canadian Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release it in theaters on October 15, followed by its streaming premiere on October 29.

Contrary to its title, there is nothing small about Ballad of a Small Player. The locations are grand, with the skyscrapers and luxurious casinos of Macau providing the backdrop. The stakes are high as Colin Farrell’s Lord Doyle has to pay his debts within three days or face dire consequences. And the method of acquiring the cash is all flash, the swing of hundreds of thousands of dollars dependent on the value of the two cards sitting next to their player.

Director Edward Berger knows a thing or two about grand storytelling. He’s been on a hot streak as of late with the one-two punch of All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave. Five Oscars are shared between the pair, although Berger was unfairly snubbed for a nomination in the Best Director category on each occasion. He has a masterful control of his craft, applying an intelligent touch to large-scale commercial filmmaking. There are tinges of Spielberg and Alan Pakula in his sensibilities, with drama wrung out of a simple conversation just as effectively as one filled with bullets and bombs.

Unfortunately, Ballad of a Small Player cannot be perceived as anything but a failure, a minor pothole on this road to success. All those qualities I just mentioned are wrong here, a fundamental flaw in the film’s DNA that stems from a miscasting of its creatives. Lawrence Osborne’s story and Rowan Joffe’s screenplay are all about depravity and addiction, how low Doyle would sink into the gutter in the hopes of a windfall. It doesn’t matter that he loses a dozen card games in a row, emptying his pockets as if the cash has an expiration date. What matters to him is that there’s a chance that he could win it all back, and then some. It’s a grubby, self-destructive way to go about life, dodging creditors and delaying responsibilities until the last possible moment.

Berger can’t get down into the mud, which is why everything is as forced as a clean-mouthed conservative saying their first curse word. The sound design is cranked aggressively loud, the frames swirl and crash, and the garish colors of Doyle’s green and orange suit insult every neon sign in the city. Volker Bertelmann’s score may be his best one yet, a high bar considering his recent work with Berger. It’s thunderously operatic, the strings and horns blasting as if they’ve been tasked with breaking down the walls to Jericho. But, again, it’s all wrong, a mismatch of tone that will make it much easier to appreciate on Spotify rather than within the film itself.

And yet, I much preferred the unnecessary bombast to the quieter scenes. It’s one thing to have style over substance; it’s another to have neither. Doyle falls into the grace of the kindly casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen), who interrupts his debauchery with introductions to the parts of Macau not intended for tourists. The problem is that their relationship is both unbelievable and unsatisfying, a tedious distraction that keeps the film’s heart on ice. There’s also Tilda Swinton as detective Cynthia Blithe, who’s been on Doyle’s tail ever since he “miraculously” came into all this money. It’s another one of her performances where she dons a gaudy wig and costume, an antithesis to the usual shady demeanor required in this line of work.

Farrell is committed to the bit, chowing down on the scenery just as much as he does on a lobster later in the film. Somebody like Nicolas Cage or John Travolta would have turned this all into a complete farce, but Farrell maintains a sense that he’s a lost soul stuck on this cycle. Comparisons to Adam Sandler’s turn as Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems are appropriate, although he at least had the benefit of being better served by his director.

Baccarat is a game of pure chance, relying on nothing from the player but just the ability to flip the cards that have been dealt. It’s a hard action to instill with tension, much as Berger tries. You either have the right cards, or you don’t. Ballad of a Small Player doesn’t have the cards, and all the bright lights and noise it shoves in your face to convince you that it does just makes the whole thing even more unappealing.