Colin Farrell goes all in with Netflix’s bold but muddled big bet.

While he’d had a solid career back in Germany, it’s quite remarkable how much of an overnight success Edward Berger has been in Hollywood. As if from nowhere, not only was he able to pull off the seemingly impossible task of adapting Erich Maria Remarque’s “unfilmable” ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Berger did it in style with an audacious interpretation of the novel that instantly put him on the map.

With awards and plaudits galore, admirers of Berger’s work were plentiful, not least in Netflix, who must’ve been sweating buckets after shelling out a hefty sum of money on All Quiet. Another critical hit followed in Conclave and Netflix were obviously keen to keep the Edward Berger ball rolling, as almost exactly a year later and we’re looking at another collaboration between the director and the streaming juggernaut.

Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) is lying low in Macau, spending his days and nights on the casino floors, drinking heavily, and gambling away what little money he has left. Struggling to keep up with his fast-rising debts, he’s offered a lifeline by the mysterious Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a casino employee with secrets of her own. However, with tenacious private investigator Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) in hot pursuit, the confines of Doyle’s reality start to close in as he desperately tries to climb to salvation.

While there were many factors that went into the success of both All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, perhaps the biggest was just how gorgeous they both looked. Even for something as overtly bleak as All Quiet, the visuals shone through in every scene and Edward Berger’s keen eye for visual flair was clear for all to see.

Once again hooking up with his Oscar winning director of photography from All Quiet on the Western Front, James Friend, Berger demonstrates that he has a visual approach unlike anyone else in the game, as Ballad of a Small Player proves itself every inch as gorgeous as the director’s previous work. Fully leaning into Macau’s neon-soaked drama and hyper-stylised environment, Berger composes every frame to within an inch of its life, as Ballad of a Small Player positively pops with colour, energy, and intrigue.

Drenched in flashing lights, lavish penthouse suites, and ostentatious fountains, but just as happy embracing the area’s natural beauty, Ballad of a Small Player is a heady visual feast that’s simultaneously highly charged and eerily haunting. It’s a potent mix that ensures that the film stands out from the (usually) visually dead Netflix crowd, while allowing the Macau location to be as much of a main character as Colin Farrell’s.

Quite literally making its voice heard and doing rather well to complement the film’s brash visuals, Ballad of a Small Player’s music really is quite something. Perhaps a little too bombastic for some tastes, Volker Bertelmann (another frequent collaborator with Edward Berger) ensures that his score pairs well with the film’s flamboyant looks.

The bombast of Bertelmann’s score certainly won’t be for everyone and there are moments where it oversteps the mark in a way it never did with either All Quiet on the Western Front or Conclave, however, go with the flow and you’ll be richly rewarded. Which is actually perfect advice for Ballad of a Small Player in general.

While not as all-encompassing as All Quiet on the Western Front and not nearly as finely honed as Conclave, there’s a distinct, electric energy to Ballad of a Small Player that’s hard to deny. As the film flows from neo-noir to morality thriller to ghost story and back again, it can often feel a little inconsistent in tone and intent, however, like Lord Doyle to the baccarat table, the film eventually draws you in, leaving you with rewards that are just as unpredictable.

At points, the plot pays off big time, promising so much as it bathes you in its vibrant, neon-lit glow, however, there are just as many occasions that it fails to deliver on said promises. The lack of payoff in certain areas is such a shame, especially as you can clearly see that there’s so much potential to do something special with the story, yet the narrative so often finds itself caught somewhere between genres and with no idea how to bring its disparate parts together.

As its various genres converge, and as Ballad of a Small Player plunges us further and further into its story, the more the film finds itself narratively stranded, eventually having to rely on its style and the performance of its star to get by. Thankfully, however, that star performance is at such a level that it manages to carry the entire thing through even its toughest moments.

A whirlwind of accents, mannerisms, nervous energy, drunken anarchy, blind panic, and effortless charisma, Colin Farrell positively throws himself into everything Edward Berger sends his way. From the very moment we see him scrape himself off his chaotic hotel room floor, it’s clear Farrell is on a serious roll here with Lord Doyle, and the more the character’s life and fortunes spiral out of control, the more he appears to be having fun with it all.

Completely unafraid to get physical and make an absolute mess of himself, yet always managing to balance it out with affecting and surprisingly subtle emotional moments, all while allowing his natural star power to shine through, it’s almost impossible to take your eyes off Farrell’s performance. While the likes of Fala Chen and the always excellent Tilda Swinton make for adequate support, there’s little doubt that this is very much the Colin Farrell show here – and he does not disappoint.

Visually and audibly, Ballad of a Small Player is more than a match for Edward Berger’s previous work. With Collin Farrell on a serious roll and the screen popping with neon-drenched pizzazz, Ballad of a Small Player is a highly engaging watch, however, elsewhere it doesn’t quite live up to its director’s usual high standards, with the film’s tone feeling muddled and its plot never truly hitting the jackpot.

Ballad of a Small Player is in limited cinemas now and will hit Netflix 29 October.