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The Cooler

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Village Vidiot

I liked this quirky William H Macy vehicle from 2003. He’s the unluckiest man in Vegas, where he’s employed as a cooler, whose mere presence lowers the boom on winners. Alex Baldwin shines in this as the mobster-manager of the Shangri-La, an old-style casino faced with significant competition from newer houses in the new ‘family-friendly’ Vegas. Nostalgia and brutality; friendship and cruelty. Maria Bello is excellent as the cocktail waitress who, paid to seduce him to keep him in Vegas, truly falls for the sadsack. It’s a nice comic book fable. Paul Sorvino does well as the over-the-hill lounge singer. The biggest problem is it can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a cartoon or a mob movie.

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