Paul Schrader likes to make films which are a slow burn to horrific. The Card Counter takes a similar route.

William Tell (Oscar Isaac) drifts though America, making money by counting cards in small casinos. When he’s not gambling, he retreats to local motels where he removes the clock & television before cocooning all the furniture with white sheets. Every different hotel room he stays in looks like a slightly different version of itself. Tell is searching for consistency and order in the world. In solitude, he writes in his journal and drinks late into the night. The following day, a new casino, another mummy wrapped motel room, journaling, drinking, repeat.

(SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.) It turns out, Tell’s real name is Tillich. He was previously incarcerated in a military prison for his role in torturing prisoner in the Iraq prison Abu Ghraib. He was one of a handful of soldiers who were punished. It’s later revealed that military contractor John Gordo (Willem Dafoe) was the primary architect pushing cruel methods of interrogation. There is a telling (pun intended) flashback of the enhanced interrogation free-for-all insanity which looks like a carnival from hell or a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Tillich admits the environment was intoxicating enough for him to lose control of himself and he experienced something akin to perverse joy doing what he was doing.

From here, I’m going to step off from directly revealing any more of the plot. William Tell is not looking for redemption. His new life is a closed, predictable circuit where he can numb himself and live without hurting others. But you can’t hide from other or yourself forever. People and opportunities are a reminder he has more life to live. He’s trying to be a ghost, but he doesn’t have to be. Prison was an acceptable purgatory compared to the madness of torturing people, yet like an addict who wants to get back to using, deep down, the feverish itch still remains. But Tell reconnection to people helps him to feel again, not for himself, but others. This opening up reconnects him to his life when he was Tillich. And this allows him to bring down some medieval righteousness to balance the karmic books of past horrors. It’s sad and beautiful.

I suppose you could call it vengeance as a commodity. It’s an absurd notion and therefore deeply human. We are emotional animals who have the capacity to care for others, but being sapiens, we don’t often exercise this muscle. Our ancestral violence can be channeled in the service for good, but this purposes the question of who is right and who is wrong. This is why we fight one another. Often hurting or torturing or killing in the name of shadowy intangibles.