The Cooler
Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) has a talent, but it's not one you would want. He's the ''cooler'' at the Golden Shangri-La casino in Las Vegas -- a nebbish whose pungent odor of loserdom is so all-powerful that it clings to anyone he passes. Is some tourist running straight sevens at the craps table? Send in Bernie to hand the guy a drink or pat him on the shoulder or just stare at him from across the felt, and the hot streak goes colder than Andrew Dice Clay's career.
It's a living, or it would be if Bernie wasn't working off a five-figure debt to Shelley Kaplow (Alec Baldwin), the old-school casino owner who cherishes the fact that it always feels like 1961 in the Shangri-La. Shelley likes Bernie, even if he had to kneecap him once long ago, but as the gimpy employee approaches the end of his servitude, Shelley's getting nervous.
''The Cooler'' is a Vegas flick, with all the arch patter and bourbon-soaked cynicism common to the genre. It's also immense fun: crisp, sexy, and acted to a fare-thee-well by a cast of poker-faced pros. As directed by Wayne Kramer and written by him with Frank Hannah, ''Cooler'' may be far-fetched, but like the oxygen-enriched confines of a casino, it's the only world that matters while you're in it.
Bernie has long had a crush on Natalie (Maria Bello), a hard blond cocktail waitress, but when she responds in kind one night, neither he nor we can believe his luck. The bedroom scene that follows is both seriously erotic and shell-shocked (this is William H. Macy we're talking about), and the ensuing romance wreaks havoc on Bernie's bad mojo. This is not good news for Shelley.
Not much is. The casino owner is under pressure to modernize from his mobster investors, who have hired a smarmy young MBA (Ron Livingston from ''Office Space'') to bring the Shangri-La into at least the 1990s. But Shelley's the kind of guy who keeps on a has-been lounge singer (Paul Sorvino), and even scores him heroin, because he feels anyone who once ruled the desert kingdom should be honored in his old age. If that's not good business sense, it is rather sweet.
Bernie is another of Shelley's lost causes, at least until Natalie rattles the cooler's dice. Complicating matters is the unexpected appearance of Bernie's son Mikey (Shawn Hatosy), a strutting, marble-mouthed scam artist who comes complete with a pregnant girlfriend (supermodel Estella Warren, looking blowsy and drugged).
''The Cooler'' is as much of a con as Vegas itself; that's the source of its charm. The dialogue has the acrid taste of 4 a.m., the camera can barely bother to step outside, and the acting is terrific across the board. There are neat reinventions and comebacks here. Bello further distances herself from her TV days as a woman at the bitter end of youth, and Macy kills the mannerisms and burrows deep inside his character -- Bernie is fascinating to Natalie and to us because he's so completely at one with his jinx.
It's Baldwin, though, who reclaims his status as one of the smartest, sharpest movie actors working -- so much sharper than his tabloid public persona. As he did in ''Glengarry Glen Ross,'' he kicks the film into a higher gear just by showing up, biting off his words with a savvy impatience that's almost, but not quite, enough to maintain control over the smoky world collapsing around Shelley's ears.
Like a good night at the tables, ''The Cooler'' looks brilliant while you're watching it and stands revealed as counterfeit only in the strong light of day. What Baldwin does, though, is the stuff of supporting actor Oscars.
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