Posted: 11/30/2003

The Cooler

(2003)

by Hank Yuloff

It’s a better than even bet you’ll love this very dark romantic comedy.

It’s an interesting concept that the bad luck that seems to surround some people can actually translate itself to others simply by having them around. No substantial interaction necessary, just the mere presence of the unlucky person has a cooling effect on those around them.

William H. Macy (Door To Door, State and Main, Fargo) is Bernie Lootz, one of those very people. He is employed at The Golden Shangra La Casino in Las Vegas as a Cooler, someone who gets near gamblers doing well in order to put an end to their hot streak. You are going to have to allow a little buy in here, but if you do it is worth the price of admission. Sure, the casino could employ gamblers to sit in on games of chance and purposely do things to help the house (taking that extra card in Blackjack, placing the harder craps bet hoping others will follow), but the idea that by just touching a roulette wheel would make everyone lose, is, I admit a long shot, but it does make for a good story.

Lootz has been in the employ of Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) for six years as a cooler, paying off an old gambling debt. His time of indentured servitude is one week from conclusion, and then Lootz is getting the heck out of Vegas. For his own preservation, he is going to take what he considers to be a permanent case of bad luck as far away from gambling as possible.

Enter Natalie Belisario. A cocktail waitress that Lootz has longed for since she began working at the casino. But to him, she’s entirely out of his league. Until Lady Luck seemingly tosses him a freebie and they hit the sheets. Within a day, they have become inseparable and he feels his luck has changed. But, like love always does, it effects his job performance and people are now lining up at the banker’s cage to cash in their winnings instead of the ATM to get more money to gamble with. This immediately gets Kaplow’s attention.

In a story right out of the Bible, we find that Kaplow used (read that as paid her a fee) Natalie to get Lootz to stay. She was Jacob’s Leah to keep him in indentured servitude. He tells this to Lootz and tries to get Natalie out of his life. But, it seems, Lady Luck has taken a look at Lootz and decides she likes him.

There are some very nice touches. He owns a black cat that runs away. His plants always die. His hotel room is not perfectly square (like 99% of run down hotels like the one he lives in are) to give us an unsettling feeling every time we see its interior. The best comes in the form of a neon sign. We hear the characters taking about easy marks the whole movie, and in one scene, Lootz pulls up to a convenience store, and in the reflection of his car window we see the last two letters of the old, flickering sign blinking out, leaving us with an entirely different message. The fully lit sign says: EZ MARKET.

I completely recommend this film. William H. Macy is, and continues to be, one of our strongest actors. His face betrays every feeling. His eyes are windows into Lootz’s sad soul (If you can rent last year’s Door to Door, you will not be disappointed). Baldwin (State and Main, Beetlejuice) is great as the bad guy. I was so happy to see him do well in this picture in the same weekend I had to witness the abomination of the Cat In The Hat in which he also starred. Nice change. Maria Bello is Natalie. You will remember her as Lil, the owner of the bar in Coyote Ugly. This is her second really big break, I hope it will lead to a lot more work because she is a great actress who deserves to stop doing crap movies like Duets and 100 Mile Rule.

I can think of a lot more movies that would be a longer shot than this one if you wanted to be entertained by a film. It’s a definite winner.

Hank Yuloff is a reviewer in Los Angeles who, as anyone who reads this e-zine knows, takes chances on a lot of movies and comes up with…. craps.

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