Genre films, especially well-worn genre films, spin on a twist: Robert Downey Jnr as Sherlock Holmes for instance. That caught your attention. So if you're going to delve into the archives and rework a James Caan genre classic, you'd want to be sure you've got something up your sleeve.

How about Mark Wahlberg as a down-on-his luck teacher-cum-gambler who racks up debt with three different gangs in the hope that the cards will eventually fall his way – or have I lost you already?

Granted The Gambler is not the guns-blazing, small-guy-takes-on-the-mob action film you expect, but the point of variation here is so slight, the offerings of anything new so small, that it doesn't make a lot of difference. Although the screenplay was penned by the formidable William Monahan (The Departed / Body Of Lies), director Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is unable to pull us past the sense of ennui that sets in not long after the opening credits roll.

Wahlberg's gambler Jim Bennet is a frustrated lecturer in English whose filthy rich mother (Jessica Lange – Broken Flowers) has all but given up on a son determined to loose everything at the table. And he takes gambling seriously, tens of thousands of dollars change hands in the flick of a wrist as he racks up phenomenal debt to blacks (Michael Kenneth Williams – 12 Years A Slave), whites (John Goodman - Argo) and Asians (Kenneth Park – Snowpiercer). His addiction knows no colour.

As tipped, this isn't a conventional con-caper in which our man defeats his creditors with some super sleight of hand. It's largely about the extraordinary lengths Bennet goes to pay his escalating debt while learning a lesson about staying clean. He engages a couple of students to help him, while falling for a third (Brie Larson – The Spectacular Now). Whilst there is the essence of a terrific character yarn (his amorality for starters), this version of events simply fails to convince and there's the crux of The Gambler's problem. In Wyatt's context, it's hard to take Bennet, his problem or his solution seriously as he becomes a writer's cliché, more so when the path he chooses turns violent.

On one hand, The Gambler is too far from reality to be all that interesting and on the other, too far from the trappings of an airport novel that might have given it some popcorn-fuelled excitement. Consequently it falls squarely through the cracks of its own ill-conception. Even Wahlberg, often a charismatic presence in this kind of fare, brings nothing. As Deep Purple learned to their chagrin with River Deep, Mountain High, some cover versions simply don't need to be made.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 2 February 2015