Review of Leaving Las Vegas (1995) by Ken C — 10 Feb 2011

It's the typical boy meets hooker story, but the performances given from Cage and Shue are heartbreaking and makes it hard not to feel sorry for them. It's one of those movies where you only watch it for the actors. The music gets very annoying and sometimes goes on for too long making some scenes feel like a trailer for the movie, and the directing is strange and sometimes unecessary.

Ben played by Nic has a ridiculous drinking problem and gets fired from his job for drinking too much. His only solution for this problem is to move down to Vegas and drink up some more until eventually killing himself. Sera played by Shue is a "Hooker With a Heart of Gold" and doesn't get any respect, she eventually falls in love with one of her customers which just so happen to be Ben and ends up taking him in and keeping him company until you know what happens. It's made very clear that Sera is very good at her job, she tells her invisible physiatrist (I think) that being with a customer is a performance and she's really good at it. But when she's with Ben she feels something different that she has never felt with a customer before, and Ben keeps reffering to her as his angel which just makes the movie all the more sad. It's fait that brought them together and Sera was ment to stand by Ben as he slowly kills himself.

The more I think about this movie the more sad it makes me feel. Sera and Ben don't deserve all this torment that comes to them even though they choose to do these things for themselves. They are both lonely and share almost the same problems and just the fact that they both found eachother in Las Vegas makes it plausible for Sera to actually be Ben's angel. It may come off as depressing or cliche to some people but the real reason to watch it is for the performances, Nic is well worthy of his oscar and Elizabeth Shue's is also well deserved and won it in the back of my mind.