Review of The Cooler (2003) by The M — 19 Dec 2004

I saw finaly saw [i]The Cooler [/i]last night, what a great wee movie. Macy plays Bernie Lootz a self confessed miserable loser, employed to spread his bad luck around the gambling tables in a Las Vegas Casino owned by the thoroulghly nasty Shelly Kaplow ( played brillantly by Alex Baldwin..yes Alex Baldwin). Lootz is only working for Shelly to pay back his gambling debts and only has a few days to go till his debts are payed up, he then intends to leave Vegas. Shelly is none to happy about this and so hires waitress Natalie (Maria Bellow) to keep Bernie in Vegas. The only problem is that Natalie actually falls in love with Lootz. What also happens is that Lootz new found love loses his bad luck mojo..much to Shelly's anger who then tries to break them up. There are a couple of other sub lots involving Shelly resisting plans from his "gangster" friends trying to modernise the Casino, and Lootz's son and girl friend ( Estelle Warren looking very manky!).

Its a very dark movie about losers and finding love and salvation, Frank Capra might have written this ( though Im not sure he would have all the explicit sex and violence !). Minor quibbles in that some of the writing is bit slow, and you do have to buy into Lootz being able to dampen the luck of gamblers; but other than that its well worth a look.

Oh yea there is someone I know in this film who has a blink and you will miss it scene!

I have five more days of employment left..yipee.

Music on the speakers.

Tom Waites Telephone call from Istanbul.

Ac/Dc Ride on.

Portishead Wandering Star.

Free Molten Gold.

The Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony.