MOVIE REVIEW Vegas tale 'The Cooler' is a winner

William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin lead a top-notch cast.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
A good, but shoulda-been-great Las Vegas-set Cinderella story, "The Cooler" still has enough terrific performances, sharp writing and genuine sex appeal to make this a safe bet for a Saturday night's entertainment.
Until overdosing on melodrama in the last reel when a stack of coincidences pile up that seem strained even for an adults-only fairy tale, Wayne Kramer's strikingly assured writing-directing debut feels like a high-roller on an unstoppable winning streak.
Much of the credit for the film's initial rhinestone luster belongs to Kramer's top-drawer cast.
As Bernie Lootz, a pasty-faced sadsack who walks with a limp and seems embarrassed by his own nerdy shadow, the incomparable William H. Macy shines in one of the juiciest roles of his career.
The plot
A professional "cooler," Bernie works at the second-tier Shangri-La casino where his job is to put the kibbosh on any customer who's winning too much of the establishment's loot. ("I do it by being myself," he meekly explains when asked where his reverse Midas touch comes from.)
More of an indentured servant than an employee, Bernie's been on the Shangri-La staff for more years than he cares to remember thanks to a debt he couldn't pay. Tough-guy casino boss Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin in an Oscar-worthy supporting turn) also smashed this one-time inveterate gambler's kneecaps with a baseball bat for that transgression, the reason for his halting gait.
The cooler's luck changes dramatically one day, however, when new casino waitress Natalie (Maria Bello, also first-rate) agrees to go on a date. Soon, this unlikely couple -- he's dumpy and middle-aged, she's shopworn but still pretty va-va-voom -- is canoodling all over the joint, and Shelly takes immediate notice of the impact their new romance has on his professional jinx's job "skills." (Macy and Bello are to be commended for their bravery during Bernie and Natalie's surprisingly explicit, and erotic, nude lovemaking scenes.)
Pressured into dropping Natalie, Bernie makes the decision to walk away for good: from the Shangri-La, from Shelley, and from Vegas itself. Complicating Bernie's retirement plans are estranged son Mikey (Shawn Hatosy) who shows up unannounced one day with pregnant girlfriend Charlene (Estella Warren). After Mikey gets caught cheating by Shelly's goons, pop offers to make good on his son's marker, even if it means sticking around for another 20 years. Shelly, meanwhile, has also been putting the squeeze on Natalie. He wants her to skip town ASAP so he can get his ever-reliable cooler back. Fate, of course, has something else in mind for just about everyone.
Beating the odds
Kramer has made a neatly atmospheric character study of two losers who beat the odds and find -- whaddaya know? -- true love.
Except for those missteps in tone toward the end which dilute its hard-earned naturalism with hokey movie plotting, "The Cooler" is aces. It even reminded me a little of John Corbett's excellent, if short-lived F/X series, "Lucky," another Vegas-set tale of down-on-their luck types trying to scratch out a place for themselves in the blazing Nevada sun.
"The Cooler" isn't as good, but whenever Macy, Baldwin and Bello are on screen, you wouldn't know it.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.