Ryan Reynolds, left, and Ben Mendelsohn in Mississippi Grind (A24)

Poker is not a glamorous pursuit, and poker table lifers, like Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn), are not hotshot forces of nature. The realities of poker, grinding it out hand after hand for upwards of 10 hours at a time, inevitably hitting bad luck after doing everything the right way, are far different than the adrenaline-fueled, million dollar pots highlighted on television during the weird recent poker boom. Like Gerry, poker players often drive old-style Subaru Outbacks, or worse, obsessively listen to poker tips on tape and sacrifice everything else in pursuit of the big pot. If you’ve ever spent any serious time at poker tables, you might agree that they’re generally a mix of overworked, stressed office hump and seedy, undisciplined lowlife, the worst of both worlds.

In the opening scene of the gambling/road movie Mississippi Grind, Gerry is established as exactly this type of player, sitting in on a dreary, $60 buy-in at a table with minimal small talk—just a bunch of dead-eyed lifers who treat it like the joyless full-time job it’s become for them. In walks Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), who changes the atmosphere of the whole table, and Gerry suddenly finds himself having fun again. Curtis dominates the game, winning big while regaling everyone with fantastic stories of his travels, and by chance bumps into Gerry at a nearby dive bar later on. Curtis reveals his secret to poker success to an awestruck Gerry: “I don’t care about winning. I like people. I like playing.”

Soon enough, Gerry and Curtis hit the road together in a grand road trip taking them through Memphis, Tunica (MS), New Orleans, Little Rock, and more. The filmmakers have made sure to photograph with care and style all the authentic, noncorporate establishments that give each town its distinct character. Curtis makes fast friends with locals from all over, sharing stories with them, and hearing tales and wisdom of their own. In a time when most small independent films take place in one or two settings, often inside of a single house, Mississippi Grind has lots of scope and a keen sense of place, setting it apart from the pack.

But the main draw are the performances. Mendelsohn has been steadily doing acclaimed work in small films, typically as someone shady with some redeeming qualities buried deep under the surface. Here, he is certainly that, engaging in every form of gambling you can imagine, owing money all over Iowa, but he is more buttoned up than usual. It takes Curtis’s swaggering bravado to bring the real fire-breathing dragon out of Gerry, and when it does come out, it is alternately tragic and inspiring to behold.

Curtis is one of Reynolds’s best roles in a while, though he has been doing solid work steadily for a couple of years now, doing terrific work in the underrated horror comedy The Voices. The character, fast-talking, confident, impossibly charismatic, is right in his wheelhouse, but Reynolds also brings sadness and vulnerability, and the effect is more of a commentary on the inherent shallowness and loneliness of the supercharismatic. The fact that Mendelsohn’s Gerry is so taken with him sort of gives viewers permission to really like him, too, as we all implicitly have come to trust Gerry’s taste.

I wouldn’t call this a black comedy, though with its depiction of the strangeness of forming male friendships in adulthood, Mississippi Grind verges on Cable Guy or The D Train territory. This isn’t the focus of the movie, but it is in the background of the city-hopping, tension-filled gambling, and endless boozing. A crew of bros even calls them a gay slur at one point, for conversing too emotionally in public.

Another quality setting this film apart is the strength and complexity of its ending. A lot of independent films, so focused on deconstructing archetypes that they fail to establish anything worth deconstructing in the first place, simply pull the rug out from under their characters, exposing them to be frauds and call it a day. There is a big aspect of deconstruction in the home stretch, but the rousing final section reminds you that movies are about more than deconstructing myths—they’re about creating them, too.