If one’s biggest compliment for a film belongs to a mid-credits dance sequence that doesn’t really have much to do with the plot, it doesn’t bode well for the overall work. Unfortunately, Ballad of a Small Player is such a work.

The latest from director Edward Berger once again draws on a novel, this time by Lawrence Osborne, for inspiration. As someone who found Conclave a kick, but All Quiet on the Western Front to be a largely empty affair—Berger’s two previous efforts—I found Ballad of a Small Player to fall much closer to Front in terms of enjoyment.

None of the fault should be laid at the feet of Colin Farrell, however. Playing Lord Doyle, the kind of man who thinks gambling in yellow gloves and velvet suits and talking in an obviously put-on posh accent conveys old money, Farrell gets big. Sweaty in every sense of the world, Farrell makes Doyle an uncomfortable but undeniably compelling on-screen presence. Whether compulsively gambling, smoking cigars he hates, drinking champagne he loathes, or binging on food that brings him neither sustenance nor joy, his every action seems rooted in self-recrimination. He skulks and skitters, cons and cajoles. While the movie waits to reveal his exact nature, it is immediately clear he is less a man than an imitation of one.

The one person who seems to find any value in him is Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a loan shark type who stakes gambling addicts over their skis at the local casino, The Rainbow Room. No matter how deep Doyle buries himself in his own sins, she seems to pop up to set him upright again. A private investigator of various aliases (Tilda Swinton), a fellow—but more successful—wastrel Adrian (Alex Jennings), and an older baccarat player with a sadistic streak, Grandma (Deanie Ip), all make the possibility of Doyle’s redemption increasingly unlikely. Even as Dao steals him out of country for something akin to a whole soul detox, the deck seems undeniably stacked. (I promise, that’s my own.)

Berger and cinematographer James Friend take great advantage of the locations. They mix wide shots full of glitz and bright colors with nigh-unbearable close-ups of an increasingly unwell Farrell. Even when the story moves to a small hut, the camera finds scope and beauty in the buildings and nature. And it does so without losing track of the desperation in Doyle. During the aforementioned dance scene, they create a beautiful, bittersweet scene set against deep blacks and neons.

Alas, a locked-in Farrell and beautiful spectacle don’t give Ballad of a Small Player much of a pulse. Perhaps that’s ironic for a story that at least partially revolves around the lore of “hungry ghosts,” insatiable spirits who attach themselves to the living. The stakes are high, Doyle’s barely suppressed despondency is palpable. And yet, there’s no blood to the thing. The tragedies don’t close the throat, the triumphs don’t exhilarate. There’s a distance here that feels antithetical to what the work demands and what its lead is pouring into it.

And yet, there are the final few minutes. And that dance scene. They point towards something more Ballad of a Small Player might have been; something bigger, messier, and achingly more human. Instead, the audience is left with a picture easy to admire but hard to feel for.

Ballad of a Small Player is playing baccarat at Netflix now.

Ballad of a Small Player Trailer: