Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Cooler

This is topic The Cooler in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mitchell Cope (Member # 32) on 01-25-2004, 08:10 AM:

William H. Macy plays Bernie Lootz, a guy who brings bad luck to any situation (mostly gambling) by just being around. He's a looser to anyone and to himself. Casino owners would hire guys like Bernie to keep people's luck in control, they were called "coolers".

Bernie has an "obligation" he's been trying to repay to his casino manager played by Alec Baldwin. His debt is within days of being paid-off and Bernie is ready to put Las Vegas in his rear view mirror. Well, this isn't going over to well with Baldwin's character, an old-fashion type of guy in the vein of "The Godfather". These two characters are tied together through friendship, obligation, and the bottom line. This is when Mario Bello's character comes into Bernie's life to change his luck around.

The colorful and dirty aspects of Las Vegas are shown here. This is a lot like a mix of "On the Waterfront" on the set of "Leaving Las Vegas". A very jazzy and moody type film. The three main characters are well defined and acted out beautifully. Very raw language at times. Not a first date type of movie.

I enjoyed this film. It had some good plot twists and situations between characters. Because so many things in the plot depend on "lady luck", you have to trust whether all the plot developments could really happen. I'd give this film 3.25 stars out of four. Worth seeing.

Note: avoid seeing this picture in an AMC. The soundtrack appears not to be in SDDS, so AMC has a hard time reproducing sound for other type of sound formats at sufficient volume.