“Rounders.” Directed by John Dahl. Written by David Levien and Brian Koppleman. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (for language, brief nudity and adult content).

Almost everything that is wrong with John Dahl’s “Rounders” can be directly attributed to Matt Damon’s face; indeed, the film’s success hinges on whether audiences will believe Damon in the role of Mike McDermott, a high-stakes poker player who risks losing his girlfriend, his college career, and, at one point, even his life for the love of gambling.

But Damon is woefully miscast here; the five-card stud performance he should have delivered plays more like Old Maid. His bleached-blond hair, prep-school clothes and adolescent face are simply too fussy, too pretty, too white-washed to be taken seriously in the smoky, sleazy, underground arena Dahl has so effectively created.

This is, after all, a world in which men look as if they gargle with gasoline, floss with flint, and then blow out candles for the sheer hell of it. Damon, on the other hand, looks as if he wouldn’t pump his own gas for fear of getting dirty. Watching him play rounds of Texas Hold `Em with men who really know how to hold `em is embarrassing at best; his poker face — strained and unsure — gives away his secret every time: Indeed, it seems that even Matt Damon knows he’s been miscast.

Making matters worse is the film’s plot, which is manufactured — incredibly — to offer zero tension. In the film, Mike, a brilliant poker player/law student who has given up gambling out of respect for his girlfriend, Jo (Gretchen Moll), is pressured back into the game by his friend, Worm (Edward Norton). Worm — yes, apparently his name is Worm — has just been released from prison and needs $25,000 fast in order to pay off a debt owed to the Russian Mafia.

Will Mike help out? Of course. Does he lose his girlfriend as a result? Naturally. Does the film build to a big poker match that pits Mike against the head of the Russian Mafia?

Need you ask?

As thin as “Rounders” is in plot, it is thinner in the relationships between its characters — and here is where the film falls apart completely. In order for audiences to believe that Mike would risk his life, give up the woman he loves and throw away his college career for a man named Worm, that relationship had better be as strong as the gambling that binds them –which, oddly it isn’t. Indeed, there are moments in the film when it seems that Mike and Worm have only just met.

Pity. On paper, “Rounders” looked as if it were playing with a full house, when in reality it was just blowing smoke all along.

This critic folds. Grade: D

Video of the Week “Wild Things.” Directed by John McNaughton. Written by Stephen Peters. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, nudity, language and violence).

As the film noir for teens, “Wild Things” feels as if it were produced by Jerry Springer, directed by one of his guests, and written by Lolita herself. In just two hours, it achieves something of a milestone in American cinema: It proves without question that the think tank in Hollywood is no longer thinking — indeed, it’s dead.

The film is a potboiler overwrought with greed, betrayal, confectionery twists and three-way sex between a guidance counselor (Matt Dillon) and his high school charges (Neve Campbell and Denise Richards). Its cast — which includes Kevin Bacon and Theresa Russell in supporting roles — does its best to inject tension into the vapid dialogue, but really there is only so much they can do in a film that amounts to trash TV shots across a 40-foot screen.

What’s so peculiar about “Wild Things” is that, in spite of all its considerable machinations, the film is not wild at all. Indeed, it is sluggish, mechanical, strangely winded even before everyone hops in bed. Theresa Russell is good as the rich, bitchy heiress whose money is the dangling carrot everyone wants to steal, but she alone cannot save a movie that, at best, should have been spayed and neutered long before production even began. Grade: D