THE COOLER is cool

[George Bellefontaine]

Stars William Macy as a fellow with such bad luck that a casino bigwig ( Alec Baldwin) hires him to go to any table where someone is hot at winning. He just stands bside them and their luck changes. But he meets a cocktail waitress ( Maria Bello) and that's when his life takes a dramatic change, and its this change that is the meat of this film.

Not exactly light fare, yet it isn't a brooding drama, either. There is a nice balance to the plot that made it quite enjoyable for me. And the acting of Macy, Baldwin and Bello is nothing short of some of the best you will see. Rumor has it that Baldwin and Bello may even get an Oscar nomination. I hope so. Baldwin is long past due.

Some steamy scenes between Bello and Macy, plus the violence and coarse language make this adult fare only. PQ is fine , but most of it is filmed in the casino and Macy's small motel room. The sound is nothing extraordinary except for some interesting touches. In Macy's little room we can hear the constant drip of a leaky faucet.

:4:

[saurabh]

Saw it, I agree with you George, the movie is totally enjoyable to the end.

Nothing more to add to what you've written, I would group it into an enjoyable Romance drama.

[Ovation]

Will add it to my Ziplist.

Edit: signed up on Monday and got my first film on Tuesday. They're pretty quick and they have hundreds of HD DVDs (unlike the 20 at my local video store), as well as about 75% of the Criterion inventory (including a number of OOP titles). For those two reasons alone I signed up with them. The only drawback is that titles are sent as available, not necessarily in my preferred order. But with the choices available, I've been able to make a decent list that no local store can match, so I don't mind. And if I really feel the need to get a film right away, I can still go to the local store.

[Danbry39]

Now, this is ironic.

I remember when this film received good reviews, but also thinking not feeling that pressed to see it.

Then, this weekend, it was showing on cable on IFC. Out of curiosity, I watched for a bit and became hooked. Had to turn it off as I'd already missed some of it, but will rent the DVD this weekend.

[Danbry39]

By the way, it was the violence that grabbed me. Sometimes scenes like this are so staged as to not fool the audience for a second. What I saw in my brief sampling of this movie made me cringe.

[George Bellefontaine]

By the way, it was the violence that grabbed me. Sometimes scenes like this are so staged as to not fool the audience for a second. What I saw in my brief sampling of this movie made me cringe.

Yeah, Keith, pretty stark indeed.

[Ovation]

Just watched this. Four stars from me as well. A perfect Baldwin role (he doesn't have a lot of range, but when he's in something suitable, he's quite good).

Re: Leaky faucet drip. It had me checking my own pipes (the dishwasher is directly above the HT room and when it stops running there is often an afterdrip in the pipes; I thought it odd that it would do that after being off for so long until I figured out it was from the movie).

[Chris D]

Would that be AWEC BAWWDWIN?

[Ovation]

Yes. Yes it would.

[Bmac]

I saw this movie about 8 month ago, and loved it. I find it almost dark humor, because of his bad luck. Four stars!