Those crushed by Hollywood’s repeated empty promises to make a movie based on the Marvel comic book character Gambit, may enjoy a brief taste of the playing card-throwing, trench coat-wearing, some sort of accent-having mutant antihero in a new fan made short film, Play For Keeps.
Actor Nick Bateman, who plays Gambit in the 20-min short, posted the video to his YouTube account recently, but the short incorporates footage from a teaser that Bateman and director Jensen Noen released in 2017. That teaser sees Bateman as Gambit, narrating the character’s motivation in voiceover before he fights Krzysztof Soszynski as Daken. (Like Gambit could ever beat someone related to Wolverine in a fight. Are you kidding me?)
Play For Keeps introduces Ellen Hollman as Rogue, a mutant who drains the powers and energy of others with skin-to-skin contact and Anna Butkevych as Magik, a teleporting demon sorceress. Many have been excited to see how Magik will be portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy in Josh Boone’s long-delayed New Mutants film–still slated for an August 28 release, fingers crossed–but Butkevych does a solid job here.
The short sees Gambit abducted by Magik after a heist, and he is brought to a poker game filled with nefarious characters. There’s a tension throughout, and it is a tension of anticipating every line will be cringe-level bad. So it’s a cool surprise when most of the short turns out to be good!
A modern retelling of Gambit would need a serious update to ’80s comic book ideas of theft, charm, and gambling or risk falling flat in front contemporary audiences. But Play For Keeps succeeds in dropping you into a comic book world that’s just believable enough to be 20-minutes of fun.