Baldwin icy, Macy “Cooler”

The Cooler

Starring William H. Macy, Maria Bello and Alec Baldwin

Directed…

The Cooler

Starring William H. Macy, Maria Bello and Alec Baldwin

Directed by Wayne Kramer

Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) walks the floor of the Shangri-La Casino, day in and day out, turning winners into losers. All he has to do is stand next to you, and your luck runs out. His own luck is so bad, it’s contagious. He’s a “cooler,” a sad relic of a bygone Las Vegas, one that didn’t so closely resemble the Disneyland it is today. Nowadays, we’re informed, most casinos employ such tactics as ambushing gamblers with a looped, subsonic recording of the word “lose.”

The Shangri-La, however, is the last holdout of the old-school Vegas, which co-writer/director Wayne Kramer characterizes as romantic – a classy place for classy people – but also dangerous; an unforgiving place where the powerful greet every problem with violence. The man in charge, Shelly (a menacing Alec Baldwin), a hard-liner who maintains the coolness and cruelness of the old days, will die before he sees his casino turned into an amusement park.

Bernie provides his services to the Shangri-La in order to pay off the last of a debt to Shelly. But when Bernie stumbles into a love affair with cocktail waitress Natalie (Maria Bello) and becomes reacquainted with the emotion of happiness, he loses the ability to “cool.” Shelly isn’t willing to let Bernie off the hook, though, and becomes determined to break the lovers apart and screw Bernie’s life back up.

Newcomer Kramer’s style is assured, but uneven. He keeps both his storylines interesting – the romance between Bernie and Natalie, which the director pumps with whimsy and some unexpected eroticism, and Shelly’s fight to keep the Shangri-La the way it’s always been, which he fills with grimness – but fails to make them feel like they belong in the same movie.

For most of the film, the performances are enough to get us through the iffy moments. Macy and Baldwin are highlights, the former being essentially a sure thing these days, and the latter in the kind of intense role he doesn’t play enough. Also, Paul Sorvino is a nice bit of casting in the small role of Buddy, the Shangri-La’s Sinatra-school singer who’s addicted to heroin and about to be replaced – by a character played by a member of *NSYNC (Joey Fatone), no less.

By the end of the film, though, the actors’ charms aren’t enough to keep us invested. The film goes on a bit too long, and the plot turns get hard to swallow. Overuse of the characters’ luck as a plot device makes for a conclusion that lacks the edge of the rest of the film. Even so, “The Cooler” easily has more spunk than almost anything at the multiplex.