Review of Cooler, The

Introduction

A cooler in gambling parlance is a man hired by a casino to surreptitiously kill a winning streak. Whenever a punter gets too successful at a particular game, a cooler would join the game and do what he could to squelch that streak of good fortune. Now imagine a man whose very appearance, demeanour, and presence would instil bad luck wherever he went, a man whose own personal misfortune and misery is as contagious as the most virulent disease. Such a man would be the ultimate cooler, a casino`s prize employee. And who better to typify the unluckiest man alive that the world worn appearance of William H. Macy, for whom this part was created.

Bernie Lootz is the cooler at the Shangri-La casino in Las Vegas, a man whose bad luck infects every gambler he comes into contact with. His streak of bad luck began when he amassed a large gambling debt, and got his kneecap shattered as a warning. The man who delivered the warning is his friend Shelly Kaplow, who is also the manager of the Shangri-La and who employs Bernie as he works off his debt. Bernie is tired of life in Vegas though and is planning to leave, when he meets waitress Natalie. For one thing he wasn`t expecting to fall in love, for another he wasn`t expecting his luck to change, and Shelly isn`t too pleased when gamblers start winning big at the Shangri-La.

Video

The Cooler is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer. The transfer befits such a recent film, with a clear and colourful image. There is the occasional black fleck and a hint of grain, but otherwise there is no print damage. The film tells its story with exquisite use of light and shade. Las Vegas is brought to vivid, hyper realistic life and the film establishes an atmosphere and mood that shows the hind end of gambling, where the glamour is getting a little threadbare. The bright neon glow of Las Vegas actually feels dark in this film.

Audio

The sound is available in DD 2.0 Surround, DD 5.1 or a full bit rate DTS track, all of them English naturally. It isn`t an action heavy film, but there is certainly a lot of the ambience of the gambler`s world. Mark Isham`s score takes its cue from the rat-pack world of the sixties casinos. There is an old fashioned style to the music that fits in perfectly with the tone of the movie. The dialogue is clear throughout, and the speakers are put to good use conveying the clunk of dice, the rattle of chips and the occasional crushing of a kneecap. There are no subtitles.

Features

Casino style animated menus with options highlighted by dice spots make for simple but effective presentation for The Cooler.

Anatomy Of A Scene, running at 20 minutes and presented in various letterbox ratios, focuses on one scene from the film. There are cast and crew interviews that fill in the background of the film and it serves as an effective making of, but by focusing on just one scene from inception to final product, it serves as a more elegant featurette. It doesn`t appear too crammed with information, though it is certainly informative.

There are two commentaries on this disc. The first with director Wayne Kramer and composer Mark Isham looks at the process of scoring the film and the inspiration behind much of the music. The second features Wayne Kramer again, this time with co-writer Frank Hannah and cinematographer James Whitaker who together discuss the making of the film. Both commentaries are quite technical, though the second is more eclectic in terms of subject matter.

Finally there is the theatrical trailer presented anamorphically. It`s interesting to see, as it markets the film as more of a straight comedy and serves to downplay much of the darker, bleaker edge of the story.

All the extras are presented in DD 2.0 Surround, and none are subtitled.

Conclusion

The Cooler is many things, but at its heart it is an unconventional love story, and the relationship between the crumpled and world-weary Bernie and the superstitious waitress Natalie is for the most part handled with sensitivity and realism (There are no L shaped sheets). The Cooler is also darkly comic, beginning with the concept of a man who is so unlucky that his very misfortune is contagious, it`s a sort of comedy noir that takes you into a seedy world, filled with shallow people and meaningless violence, that unexpectedly hits you with a belly laugh out of the blue. Finally the Cooler is a clash of two worlds, the old-world Vegas casino of the sixties, of which the Shangri-La is one of the last, and the new Disneyesque casinos, that cater for families and provide big entertainment, multiplex cinemas and amusements in addition to the card tables and roulette wheels.

The Shangri-La as shown here is almost a love song written to honour the memory of a bygone age. Slot machines and blackjack tables dominate a casino where the only entertainment is Paul Sorvino`s worn out, drug addicted, lounge singer. It`s a casino that`s desperately clinging on to a fading dream, even as the new generation of Harvard educated business graduates move in to revitalise and rebuild. Standing alone between the old ways and the new is manager Shelly Kaplow. This film may have been written with William H. Macy in mind, and surely no one else could play the perennial loser Bernie Lootz with as dishevelled a demeanour as he does, but surprisingly it`s Alec Baldwin as the sociopath Shelly Kaplow who steals the film. Alec Baldwin creates a refreshingly amoral character in Shelly. This is a man who kneecapped his own friend to teach him a lesson, yet the passion he has for the old school way of doing things is palpable. One of the more moving moments is a conversation he has with the has-been singer Buddy Stafford (Sorvino), a man he obviously adores. This depth and charm to the character make his subsequent actions all the more shocking, and it`s the shading in his character that actually gives the film much of its depth. Maria Bello is great as Natalie, and she sparks well with William H. Macy. Unfortunately her character is the weak point in the film, especially when two thirds of the way in, the big twist regarding her character is revealed. It`s perhaps the only really obvious cliché in the film, but it`s such a worn out and creaky one, that I actually groaned when it was dusted off and wheeled out.

Other than that one moment, The Cooler was a joy from beginning to end. Great characters, snappy direction and stylish music make up a great movie. It`s an original take on a well-worn genre that will have you both laughing and wincing. The disc is very well put together, but let down only by the lack of subtitles. Coincidentally, to avoid the dreaded NC17 rating in America, a couple of seconds of pubic hair was trimmed, but UK audiences need not fret, as the hair is back in all its glory. The Cooler is one to watch.