The Cooler (2003)

CLAY

William H. Macy stars in this dog of a film. He's a unique actor who tends to heavily color the texture of any movie. Unfortunately, even his unique personalization of the 'permanent loser' role can't save the problems of this plot.

Don't get me wrong; the movie starts out on an interesting note...but quickly decends into trite, problematic territory. Like many a short story or novella, the basic situation is interesting, compelling even. As a 'cooler' Macy's character (Bernie Lootz) wields a unique talent for ruining the luck of anyone with whom he comes in contact. Accordingly, he is employed by a casino, and is rather good at his job. The drawback is that his life sucks. Sucks, that is, until a beautiful woman (Surprise! Love Interest ruining the film!) enters his life and turns his personal luck around. Viola, the script practically writes itself. . . meaning that you don't really need to watch the rest.

But the flaws of this movie go far beyond the predictability of the romance plot. Two of the most sickening are the formulaic, laughable performances of Alec Baldwin as a nefarious casino owner, set in contrast to Ron Livingston's trite role as the 'newschool' casino developer. Memo to Hollywood: I once saw this movie about Vegas about how it used to be cool back in the days of true hustlers and high society, and how its descended into a plastic self-parody with no space for the hardcore oldsters. It was called Casino, it was directed by Martin Scorsese, and it was super-excellent. It didn't rely on pathetic character development and flimsy motivation. Maybe you should rent it and then bury this piece of dogsh*t in the desert.

Really, I'm just picking out some of the most obvious aspects to complain about. There's a whole lot more. For starters, take the 'loser son from New Jersey and his pregnant wife' subplot. Now there's an instance of "things I just don't want to watch or care about". Speaking of which, the movie has waaaaaay too many scenes/acts. The whole thing needed to be shortened/made more coherent. I feel like a lot of the plot--especially the ending movements--is just dragging on, before reaching (what seemed to me) it's inevitable conclusion.

Since i could barely bring myself to watch the 2nd half of the film (I finished it, but the last swallows were difficult to get down), I'm giving it a 2.9 slices / 8. It could have been a successful piece, but a volume of flaws just sunk this ship.