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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS Las Vegas is a resonant destination for an American road movie, and still the place to tweak idiosyncratic versions of the American Dream. Debut writer/director Hue Rhodes drolly captures the current zeitgeist in this dark comedy, even though it was made before the Great Recession toppled the glitter city’s overbuilt dreams and over-packaged mortgage loans. John (Steve Buscemi) is first seen at a convenience store trying to resist the siren call of placing bets with scratch-off lottery tickets. He explains to the bored young cashier that he used to live in Las Vegas, and then he narrates his life story to illustrate why his philosophy of luck means he can never return. With the sad sack frustration Buscemi has perfected like a modern-day Buster Keaton, John goes through a series of unfortunate events that draw him back to Vegas after he had sworn off its risks for a placid, organized life in Albuquerque. But it seems no matter how much he tries to settle into a little home made of ticky-tacky and work in a cramped cubicle like everyone else, he just keeps attracting bad luck. Even each day’s commute to his job at an auto-insurance company goes according to Murphy’s Law. He’s rewarded, though, by the sight of his sexy cubicle neighbor, Jill (Sarah Silverman), who is such an eternal optimist that she has happy faces plastered everywhere. Their relationship shows such promise of a sunny future that she encourages him to stretch his comfort zone by asking for a raise. This means negotiating with his wily boss Mr. Townsend (Peter Dinklage), who is proud of his record of denying the most claims. He makes John an offer he can’t refuse: a raise if he moves up into fraud investigation. But to do that John has to accompany crack investigator Virgil (Romany Malco, ever the slow burning straight man in such comedies as The 40-Year-Old Virgin) to the site of a suspicious car accident—just within the gravitational pull of Las Vegas. Virgil is intrigued by John’s fear of returning to Vegas and holds the truth over him as they set out on the road to parse the fraud. This set-up may be a satirical tip of the hat to Buñuel’s 1965 fable of Satan trying to tempt Simon of the Desert as Virgil and John meet a hilarious assortment of characters in the desert, here in the New Mexican turf of Lucypher the crime boss (Matthew McDuffie). A diverse gallery of actors make distinctive impressions like Tasty D Lite (Emmanuelle Chriqui), a stripper in a wheelchair; Ned the Militant Naturist (Tim Blake Nelson, who I’m sure all movie audiences have been waiting to see nude); and Smitty the human torch at a carnival (John Cho, enveloped in an asbestos suit). Each has their own dream and own brand of bad luck, eliciting Virgil’s scorn and John’s sympathy as a fellow schlimazel (that’s who a schlemiel spills the soup on). While there is plenty of humor, such as in how Jill finagles her Panglossian view of the world into an affair with her boss, there is a serious matter of fraud to cynically untangle, and John’s gambling addiction to be maturely faced. A film that
is a dark mirror image to Saint John of Las Vegas is Amir Naderi’s
Vegas: Based a True Story, which has not
gotten out beyond film festivals, but is probably more realistic these
days. It offers a far less benign view of recovering gambling addicts
living on the edge. Under the same full moon that rises
over the looming casinos of the Strip in the distance, a family of three
is devilishly tempted, and the suspense of just how far
they will go to scratch that itch is as riveting as it is exhausting,
but a lot less amusing than Saint John.
Nora Lee Mandel
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