The Cooler

This film directed by Wayne Kramer has a more realistic approach to what goes on in casinos and other seedy gambling places, a far cry to the new Disneylike-Las Vegas of today.

Just to think that this poor loser Bernie can attract the gorgeous Natalie is enough for him to think: Gee, what's wrong with this picture?...Bernie hasn't scored with a babe in quite a while, so when he gets so lucky in bed, it's the moment to call it quits and take the next Greyhound out of town because things like that can only happen to schmucks, or in this case, to this 'cooler', as his boss calls him. One has to really have an open mind to even think this Natalie will fall in love with Bernie.

The idea of how people can be jinxed by these casino reptilians is a thing not to be believed. If it exists, I don't know, not being into gambling, but then, the world of gamblers are full of superstitions.

William H. Macy is an actor that is always interesting to watch. His Bernie is a flawed character, but inside he is a decent person who wants to get out of his present occupation. Maria Bello is excellent as the woman who will stand by her man.

The real surprise of the film is Alec Baldwin. This is, without a doubt, the best role in quite a while for him. His Shelly is a man without scruples who is ruthless with those that dare to cross him. He actually deserves better material where he can excel.

This film was a pleasant surprise because of the acting that Mr. Kramer has elicited from his cast.

The Cooler is worth seeing just for Alec Baldwin's performance alone. An old style casino boss, his inability and unwillingness to accept the new Vegas sends his volatile nature over the edge. Baldwin has always been an underrated actor- at the start of his career, the big studios made the mistake of trying to market him as a star, rather than as the quality actor that he is. He is also helped by working alongside another great actor, William H Macy, who can do more with a look than most can do with 6 OR 7 pages of dialogue ( See the scene when he realizes Maria Bello is still in his flat ). See this film for the acting. It's good to see that films like The Cooler and 21 Grams are doing well and being recognised - it is a triumph for acting and strong scripts as opposed to continual FX and CGI in modern cinema.

William Macy's Bernie Loots is a full-time loser. His luck is so bad that it rubs off on anybody around him. Lootz is a cooler - a guy who circulates around in a casino run by Alec Baldwin, cooling off winning streaks. If this sounds improbable, you've rented the wrong DVD, because it only gets moreso. This film is a somewhat unique Vegas fantasy film where luck and love play the starring roles. It's a Las Vegas love story, but unlike the disturbing Leaving Las Vegas, it's not a story of hopelessness and redemption, but rather, an adult fairy tale.

Maria Bello turns in an excellent performance as Lootz' romantic interest - the woman who changes everything for him, turning his luck around and, therefore, threatening his livelihood. Alec Baldwin, an obsessed and beleaguered casino manager, will stop at nothing to keep Lootz around.

I'm not a big fan of Vegas, or Vegas-oriented films, but the cast and the unusual themes of The Cooler made it a must see for me. The script was good, and the cinematography was good, but nothing special. Baldwin is terrific and so is Maria Bello. Macy's performance was not quite up to his usual par, and the direction occasionally seemed a little directionless, but all in all, this is an interesting film and well worth seeing.

Bernie Lootz is a 'cooler' – a man whose very presence on a casino floor turns peoples' luck to cr*p and stops any winning streak dead in its tracks.

As such he is a very valuable asset to casino boss Shelly Kaplow, himself having enough problems of his own trying to stop his old school casino being revamped to the point of losing it's sense of class. However, with Bernie looking to leave, Shelly is eager to make him stay – not helped by waitress Natalie falling in love with Bernie and turning his jinx into universal good fortune. With the casino dropping a million plus in one day, Shelly takes action to protect what is his.

As with many viewers I suspect, I was attracted to this film by the cast and the fact that it received a few nods from the Oscars (despite being showy enough to win). The plot is based on the old casino idea of coolers being those who bring bad luck to the tables but it very much needs you to buy into the idea of luck to really enjoy this fable of lady luck – unless you get into it, it'll feel rather forced and silly at times. However the film helped me to overcome this by being very lowkey and downbeat – very much like Bernie himself the film is dog eared and lovable, not a great thing but one that is easy to get into. The film uses Las Vegas really well and it is the Las Vegas I believe in – downbeat, cruel and plastic, it is much better than the fun, breezy and slick Vegas that we are sold in CSI or in Oceans 11. The mix of romance, comedy and violence works very well – at points it was very touching, at others quite funny and then others unrelentingly brutal and downbeat. It isn't perfect of course and the writing is where the problems lie; the story did rely on the audience buying into it and at times the dialogue comes very close to corn (but just misses). The only time I felt really let down by it was the ending, which, although fitting with the spirit of the film, missed a great chance to be dark, depressing and beautiful all at the same time.

Despite the odd weakness in the material, these are almost totally covered by a superb collection of performances. Macy may be aware of typecasting but so what if he keeps getting roles like this, probably one of his best performances since Fargo. He is typically the little man who we cannot help but root for and Macy does well never to let Bernie become pathetic to the point that he loses the audience. Bello also does pretty well and even convincingly falls for Bernie even though the film offers her very little opportunity to show a real development of love there. She is pretty but not to the point where she is an unconvincing waitress and her dashed hopes are well worn by her. However the one performance that dominated the film was Baldwin who does very well in delivering a role that could easily have become caricature. At turns he is amusing, brutal, friendly and tragic and Baldwin does almost all of these with minor touches – at one point I was impressed by how well he controlled his face (eyes in particular) to convince me that here was a man who was totally lost. A great performance and one that definitely deserved his Oscar nod. Support is just as good from several well known faces; Sorvino is given little more than a cameo but the one scene he shares with Baldwin is fantastic and, unlike some of his other roles, I never saw Paulie once – his Buddy was too tragic for that ghost to linger here. Hatosy is OK even if his part of the story is not as good as the others and Nascarella will be a well known face to many due to many roles in films for Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese and a few other big films.

Overall this is not a perfect film and it needs you to really buy into its fantasy world to really enjoy it but it works well and turned out to be an enjoyable, low key and atmospheric little love story that was never brilliant at any one thing but managed to be touching, brutal, funny and, ultimately, quite satisfying even if my darker side wanted an ending with more punch.

A "cooler" is a guy who stands next to you in a casino when you are having a winning streak that is suddenly interrupted. It is someone who has such a bad luck that people around him are influenced; he could be pretty important for casino bosses. The cooler here is Bernie and the face of William H. Macy is perfect for him. The casino boss is Shelly in a wonderful performance from Alec Baldwin. Soon Bernie will leave, but not before he has met and fallen in love with Natalie, played by Maria Bello (for me only known from 'Payback' and 'Coyote Ugly'), a third terrific performance. She seems to like him also and suddenly that means Bernie is lucky. This will give, unfortunately for Shelly and therefore himself as well, results on the casino floor. Things are getting complicated.

The story is pretty original and entertaining on itself. A sub-plot that deals with the idea of remodeling the casino into a more modern one, not if it is up to Shelly, gives him a reason to be annoyed and show his more cruel side. Baldwin is at best in these scenes. The performances take the film to the next level. Baldwin won an Oscar nomination and it is pretty clear why. You believe him the entire time, no matter what he does. From Macy we expect a good performance, he is one of the best character-actors out there. I was also pleasantly surprised with Bello, an Oscar nomination would not have been strange here; she is very good, even great in the scenes with Macy. In the end 'The Cooler' is a good film, becoming better through performances, entertaining all the way through.