Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 169
Fresh: 130 | Rotten: 39
A small movie elevated by superb performances.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 4
A small movie elevated by superb performances.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 18,103
Writer/director Wayne Kramer offers a glimpse into the aging Las Vegas casino world with the romantic drama The Cooler. Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is extremely unlucky at gambling, and he owes the Shangri-La casino over 100,000 dollars. He is so unlucky that he is hired as a "cooler," someone to gamble next to high rollers and give them some of his bad luck to stop them from winning. This arrangement works out for awhile, until Bernie has almost paid off his debt and meets cocktail waitress
Nov 26, 2003 Wide
Apr 27, 2004
$8.2M
Lions Gate Films
All Critics (177) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (134) | Rotten (39) | DVD (26)
In reconstructing Macy's equal-opportunity loser persona as a romantic winner, The Cooler forgets what made its star so winning in the first place.
A B-movie in the best sense: Unpretentious. Raffish. Just trashy enough to be six kinds of fun without making you hate yourself in the morning.
A movie without a compass, switching pace and direction as haphazardly as a caffeinated SUV driver on a cellphone.
It's pretty winning for a long way, reminding us that everything in life is a kind of gamble, and if you don't play, you'll never win.
Had The Cooler stuck to its dark guns and not turned into a treacly, love-conquers-all fairy tale, this movie might have gone somewhere.
A surprising, ingenious film.
"The Cooler" is a complex 'small' movie that packs a big punch.
What elevates this Vegas-set drama above the routine is the high-caliber acting of William H. Macy, Maria Bello, and especially Alex Baldwin, who received a well-deserved Oscar nomination.
Alec Baldwin se encarga de que Shelly sea por lejos el personaje más interesante de esta historia (...)
A pointless, money-depleting waste of time to be avoided at all costs.
A curious mix of thug violence, romance, and whimsy.
Yet another good William H. Macy movie. Very well made and well acted movie. Seems like this would really be something that casinos do.
October 14, 2010Super Reviewer
Macy at his best supported by Bello as her star was rising and Baldwin at his scene stealing sinister peak. Just short of classic on account of the flimsy 'luck' premise being stretched beyond credulity.
September 22, 2010
Super Reviewer
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