LOVE RANCH
Directed by Taylor Hackford
Produced by Hackford, Lou DiBella & Marty Katz
Written by Mark Jacobson
Released by E1 Entertainment/Aramid Entertainment Fund Limited
USA/Germany. 117 min. Not Rated
With  Helen Mirren, Joe Pesci, Sergio Peris-Mancheta, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, Scout Taylor-Compton, Bai Ling, Elise Neal, Melora Walters, Emily Rios, M. C. Gainey, Bryan Cranston, Raoul Trujillo & Gil Birmingham
 

Castrate a Martin Scorsese film (lose the grit, guns, and suspense), add a telenovela plotline and a relentlessly maudlin score, and you have Love Ranch, the would-be Casino-turned-soap opera set within a legalized brothel in 1970’s Reno. Director Taylor Hackford somehow managed to recruit Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren to play Grace and Charlie Bontempo, the husband and wife team loosely based on a real pimp/madam powerhouse at the helm of the Love Ranch, one of Nevada’s first legit destinations for pleasures of the flesh.

Though Joe Pesci is back in form as the scheming Bontempo, his latest hustler persona is sleepier and softer around the edges than the Pesci wiseguys we’re used to. He plays the doting husband to his longtime business partner/wife, and while the arrangement is certainly a financial impetrative, his cooing whispers and romantic public gestures woo Grace and the audience alike, leaving us wondering if he’s such a shifty fellow after all. But we don’t for long. Charlie wears his rotating affairs with the perky live-in hookers like an inevitable accessory of his profession, proudly and right under Grace’s nose.

In contrast to his skeeze, Grace, as played by the indefatigably elegant Mirren, is a hard character to swallow. Her highbrow comportment (and the lingering hint of an English accent) doesn’t quite wash with her hard knocks background as both a daughter of a prostitute and an unapologetic, lifelong madam. In a self-aware nod to the unconventional casting, Charlie asks her, “Who do you think you are, the Queen of f***in’ England?” rudely jarring us out of the fictional world of the film and prompting an awkward wave of giggles in the audience.

But Grace is meant to be a character of contradictions, and a new arrival to the house—Armando Bruza, a strapping Argentinean boxer (Sergio Peris-Mencheta)—threatens to rattle Mrs. Goodtimes, as he affectionately calls her, out of her stupefied life and marriage. Used to trading in human commodities, Charlie basically buys Bruza by settling his gambling debts and wrenches the lovable brute into the couple’s lives by offering up Grace as his new manager.

Watching their relationship evolve is about as nail-biting as guessing the outcome of a will-they/won’t-they sitcom finale. Bruza always seems to be bursting into radiant smiles and testing our tolerance for good-natured, charming comments, which Grace meets with a well-timed progression of annoyance (cue the conflict), wonder (ratchet up our hope), and sheer delight (check).

If presented as a silly romance aimed at the female side of the audience spectrum, Love Ranch is, I must admit, pleasant and satisfying. But in the presence of two great actors and a genuinely intriguing true story, the sophomoric approach can only feel like a missed opportunity. Yana Litovsky
June 30, 2010