The Cooler vs Hard Eight

I’ve been watching this series of documentaries lately, on the Travel Channel, about Las Vegas. Here’s what I’ve learned: no one wins there. No one. Even the people who win, never win. It’s a sad place, dressed up in neon and noise. It’s like a giant shiny present under a beautiful shiny tree, but you can’t ever get it open. The empty, shiny box is your present, and the tree is watching you.

The Cooler, directed and co-written by Wayne Kramer, depends a lot on us still believing in the dreams of Las Vegas, mainly so that it can crush them. A cooler, in case you don’t know, is someone employed by a casino, to interfere with winning gamblers, send out bad vibes, and basically spread bad luck. The title cooler in this case is Bernie Lootz, and he’s the best. Bernie is played by William H. Macy, so you might assume that the bad luck he spreads in the casino is also a constant presence in his life. You’re right.

Bernie has a crappy little motel apartment, his cat ran away, his marriage failed, his knee failed, his suits don’t fit, and there’s never cream left at the bar when he wants a cup of coffee. On the floor though, Bernie is magic. He need only place a bet beside you, and dealer wins. Sometimes just a touch of his finger to the edge of a roulette table is enough to land the ball nowhere near the highest bet.

He sees a kindred soul, or maybe just a pretty girl, in Natalie, a cocktail waitress who gets none of the good tips, but plenty of unwanted gropes. Bernie enlists her on one of his cooling trips, and she’s flattered and impressed. Soon, they’re striking up an unlikely friendship.

The casino, the Shangri-La, is an old Rat Pack style joint, with little in the way of modern Vegas glitz. The casino manager, Shelly (played by Alec Baldwin) prefers it that way. He likes that people in his casino get dressed up, that they’re adults with money. He likes the aging standards singer (Paul Sorvino) in the lounge. A corporate efficiency expert type, played by Ron Livingston, drops in and has big plans for the Shangri-La. New entertainment, new architecture, and most importantly, new tactics for curbing those pesky winners. Meaning, Bernie’s job is on the line.

Eventually, Bernie becomes romantically involved with Natalie. This could be because

1. She really is attracted to him. He’s a great guy.
2. Something fishy’s going on here…
3. It’s a movie. They’re supposed to be in love. Or
4. All of the above.

Anyway, they start going at it on a regular basis, and she pays him the biggest compliment anyone has ever paid William H. Macy in a movie. You’ll know it when you hear it. Soon, their love seems not so much lust as actual love, and wouldn’t you know it, Bernie’s luck improves. Drastically. There’s even cream. Which means, of course, that the gamblers at the Shangri-La have better luck as well, which means the Shangri-La is losing money, which means Livingston is putting pressure on Shelly, and Shelly is putting pressure on Bernie, and if you know Vegas like I know Vegas, you know heads are gonna roll.

The Cooler, in case you can’t tell, is a lot of fun. It’s a comedy, to be certain, but also dark and human. Of course, Natalie has secrets, because she must. She’s played by Maria Bello, who gives Natalie just enough dignity that we feel angry for her when she’s shamed, but not so much that we don’t believe it when she reveals her darker sides. Bello and Macy have surprising chemistry, and seem to actually be having fun with their love scenes, instead of the dimly-lit, sheet raising, heavy breathing we normally get in movies. They’re not doing it to cleanse their souls; they just wanna wake the neighbors once in a while.

William H. Macy is fantastic, as usual. I love when an opportunity comes along for a character actor to take the lead (see American Splendor), and Macy doesn’t waste a single moment. His depression in the beginning of the movie and his elation in the middle are equally believable. Alec Baldwin is also well used. I love when an opportunity comes along for a lead actor to take a character part. Although, in my opinion, this is where Baldwin works best. He gets to explore his comic side (used to great effect on SNL and pretty much nowhere else), as well as seedier aspects of humanity that would have gone unmentioned in a lead roll. His Shelly is a mean, angry, smooth, funny guy. He’s Tony Soprano by way of Johnny Carson. He’s the sort of guy who regularly breaks knees and then buys new suits for the victims.

The Cooler is more complex than I’ve let on, but allowing the various surprises to present themselves is part of the joy of the movie, so I won’t spoil them. The Cooler is largely a fable, a genuinely sweet story in a pretend-sweet town. It reminded me of another Vegas tale, one of losers and pros, of damaged women and low-lifes. P.T. Anderson’s Hard Eight.

Hard Eight stars John C. Reilly as John, a young man found slumped on the sidewalk outside a diner by Sydney, played by Phillip Baker Hall. Sydney invites him in for a cup of coffee, and then men start a tentative friendship (John is extremely suspicious at first). John’s mother has died, and he was trying to win money in Vegas to bury her, but he failed. Sydney offers to drive him back to Vegas and teach him how to win money. Why Sydney would be this generous to John is a big part of the plot of Hard Eight (it’s based hugely on a coincidence that you’ll either buy or not. Baker Hall sells it in such a way that I don’t think you’ll have a problem). Luckily, regular, day-to-day life in Vegas is part of it too, and it’s fascinating.

At the casino, Sydney shows John how to get a free room just by playing slots (it’s complicated, but not nearly as you’d think). John is almost childlike in his gratitude, offering Sydney drinks from his minibar, and pay-per-view movies. I was reminded of Fisher King, when Jeff Bridges gives Robin Williams some money and Williams wants to use it to buy something for Bridges. I’m not sure how old Reilly’s John is; Reilly was about forty when Hard Eight was made, but John easily be ten or fifteen years younger. No matter, Reilly is completely believable as Sydney’s young protégé.

A couple years pass, and John is still in Vegas, and has become Sydney’s best friend. The two meet at the casino frequently, and are well-liked an respected by everyone around. John becomes enamored with a cocktail waitress, Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), and eventually, they are a couple. Sydney can see that Clementine is sad and hurting, and probably thinks her relationship with John will keep her from her dangerous life (which includes drugs and prostitution on the side. There will never be a movie about a pretty girl in Vegas who is not a hooker.)

Almost immediately, John and Clementine are married, and soon after, find themselves caught up in a tragic series of events, with Sydney the only one who can fix everything. Also involved is Jimmy, who is played by Samuel L. Jackson, so I shouldn’t have to tell you he’s a bad dude that is not to be fucked with.

Hard Eight is exhilarating in the way it creates Vegas as a place to go to be rich and cool and in love, but also in the way it creates Vegas as a place to hide from reality or to be hurt in very specific ways. Hard Eight was the first movie from P.T. Anderson, and it’s surprisingly intimate and subtle, more Punch-Drunk Love than Boogie Nights. His usual smart dialogue and beautifully-framed images were already in place in this first film. Likewise, the performances in Hard Eight are all right on pitch. John C. Reilly plays characters like this fairly regularly, and he’s good at it. This innocent of a character could be baffoonish in the wrong hands, but Reilly keeps him realistic. I especially like the moment when he and Clementine are trying to figure out where to escape to from Vegas and Sydney suggests Niagra Falls. John can’t go there though, because he’s already been. That guy would make an excellent cooler. Gwyneth Paltrow is surprisingly good as Clementine. It’s easy to forget that she got her start in dark films like Flesh and Bone and Se7en, and here she has to tap into a similar element, which she does quite well. Phillip Baker Hall and Samuel L. Jackson…come on, you don’t need me to tell you how good they are; just rent Hard Eight and enjoy.

The Cooler: B
Hard Eight: A-