Buried Treasures: The Cooler
Director Wayne Kramer took on quite a venture when he made his 2003 effort, “The Cooler.” Why? Because it was released just eight years after Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” — the greatest film ever made about mob corruption in the Las Vegas casino industry. In fact, some critics dismissed “The Cooler” as too predictable and felt it overly mined some of the same territory as “Casino.” I disagree. In a comparatively weak year for Hollywood, “The Cooler” was my favorite picture of 2003. Rather than “Casino,” I prefer to equate “The Cooler” with David Lynch’s 1986 masterpiece, “Blue Velvet,” in that a dark underworld brews beneath the surface of an otherwise innocuous setting.
"Cooler" is allagedly a term casinos use to describe someone so inherently unlucky that his mere presence at a table game causes other gamblers to lose money. A casino boss would send his cooler to a table where a guest was on a winning streak. The cooler would theoretically end the hot streak, thereby preventing the casino from losing a large chunk of money to one gambler. Do casinos really utilize coolers? I don’t know. It seems a little farfetched, but Kramer shows us how it works in the opening scenes. William H. Macy is at his meek, downtrodden, everyman best as Bernie Lootz, a former gambling addict now working as a cooler for casino boss Shelly Kaplow, brilliantly played by Alec Baldwin. If you recall his five minutes of hot-tempered verbal abuse from David Mamet’s 1993 film, “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Baldwin has basically taken that character, toned it down a shade and set him in a Vegas gabmling house. Baldwin’s Kaplow operates the casino with an iron fist, and nobody tells him what to do — save for his mob connection, Nicky Fingers. (And if that isn’t the greatest mafia name in cinema history, I don’t know what is.)
Enter Larry Sokolov, played by Ron Livingston, a recent Ivy League grad sent by the new owners to bring the casino into the 21st century. Sokolov’s ideas run counter to everything Kaplow stands for — in essence, the recent effort to make Las Vegas more of a family-friendly vacation destination, complete with the beautification and ornamentation despised by the “old guard.” Conflict also arises when Bernie’s son and his wife show up at the casino, only to mock its stodgy vapidity. Shelly’s world is crumbling around him, and he’s bound and determined to make everyone else pay the price. The result is a taut, vivid yarn depicting the sometimes shockingly violent unraveling of the mid-century Las Vegas casino industry as seen through Kaplow's eyes. Baldwin received his only Oscar nomination to date for this role, and it is indeed the best work of his long, successful career. Coincidentally, Tim Robbins won Best Supporting Actor that year for his role in Clint Eastwood’s “Mystic River.” Robbins is always solid, and that picture was a surefire winner, but as the years have passed, I remember Baldwin’s performance as though I’ve just seen it for the first time; I can’t say the same for Robbins.
Macy gives one of the three best performances of his long career as well, the other two being 1996’s “Fargo” and 1999’s “Magnolia.” Maria Bello scores, too, as Bernie’s love interest. As strong as the cast, the screenplay (by Kramer and Frank Hannah) is a real gem, as it laments the passing of a bygone time and place while simultaneously bidding it good riddance. Unfortunately, Kramer’s work since then (including “Running Scared” and “Crossing Over”) hasn’t lived up to the vast potential of “The Cooler.”
Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, and William H. Macy share a tense moment in "The Cooler"
It’s a winner, and it’s this month’s Buried Treasure.