The Cooler

The story behind the story of Bernie the loser and Natalie the waitress has legs, but is never asked to run. Old style Las Vegas means the Mob; new style Las Vegas means Disneyfication. Tough guys vs family friendly.

This might have been Casino 2, with Alec Baldwin standing in for Robert De Niro, but the politics of the commercial jungle, where Yale-educated youngbloods are in ascendance and old-fashioned thuggery frowned upon, makes way for the most unexpected and (frankly) sentimental romance.

William H Macy has a face like a broken promise. When he's not playing weaklings, he's an oddball eccentric, or salesman on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Bernie is tailor made for him, deeply depressed, a failure in life and marriage, employed by the guy who smashed his knee with an iron bar for non-payment of a gambling debt to bring bad luck to high rollers at the tables.

How do you "bring bad luck"? In Bernie's case, it's simple. All he has to do is stand next to a winner and suddenly he's not winning anymore. It's a form of osmosis, the transference of negativity, a useful addition to the dirty tricks armory in the fleece wars against punters.

There is a similarity with the Spanish film Intacto, in which a man is employed at a casino for exactly the same purpose, but in The Cooler the plot flies off at a tangent and romance rears its pretty head. Natalie might have been Patricia Arquette in the years when she was the hottest tottie in town and, before her, Sharon Stone. Now she's Maria Bello, blonde, feisty and boobelicious.

You are asked to believe that a girl like Natalie would fall in love with a bad vibe like Bernie. Macy must have thought it was Christmas. Sex scenes with Maria? Yabbadabbababy!

There is a twist, which tries (fails) to explain the ambitious waitress's seduction of this emotional black hole. And, of course, when Bernie's getting it and feeling good about himself, his luck changes and guess what? Baldwin doesn't see the funny side.

For once, Macy slips too neatly into a parody of himself. Bello adds sex appeal, even if it's never entirely spontaneous, while Baldwin plays it hard. There has always been a vicious edge to his performances, which is why he's miscast in rom-coms and nice guy roles. Here he mismanages his anger beautifully and behaves like a Special Forces interrogator at Abu Ghraib. The words "glove" and "fits" come to mind.