An Original idea wrapped in a Cliché?

A movie about a looser, a real big looser. How big of a looser? Big enough that a once rivaled casino now heading for the economic toilet has hired him to spread his bad luck thought-out the casino, to kill the hot streak of high rollers.

Alec Baldwin plays Shangri-La casino boss Shelly Kaplow who forgot that it’s the twentieth century and conducts business in the stereotypical 1950s fashion. Refusing to give into any kind of change and to what he calls Disneyization.

William H. Macy plays Bernie Lootz the constantly down on his luck putts, indebted to Shelly, they both have a past relationship which is unclear in the film's plotline. Although Bernie claims that Shelly cured him from years of a bad gambling habit by breaking his knee cap.

Bernie is only weeks away from being totally out of debt from Shelly. But his plans of leaving Las Vegas get thrown into jeopardy when he meets and falls in love with sultry casino waitress Natalie Belisario (Maria Bello) and is torn between her and the new life he seeks. His new found love is also bad for business, Bernie finds himself rubbing off good luck to the casino’s high rollers, very bad for business at the Shangri-La.

Things get complicated when the son he almost forgot about bumps into him accidentally. Strapped for cash he asks his father for money so that he and his very pregnant wife can give Bernie’s future grandson a better life.

The pieces in his life come crashing down when he learns that Natalie fell for him only because Shelly paid her to do so, only she now claims she is now truly in love with him. When he feels his life could not get any worse, he finds out that his son duped him with his girlfriend and her extra large pillow ( I saw it coming). When Natalie gets beat up, Bernie walks into the lions den to take on the casino that held him personally hostage for so many years, with an ending that can only end one way.

I love how this film reflects old 1950s Las Vegas, from the floor of the Shangri-La to Bernie’s small slum motel/apartment. Everything reeks of the past. The viewer should be warned that this film has several scenes of graphic adult content. Two cases of realistic simulated sexual intercourse between Natalie and Bernie. This is done tastefully in a way that does not detract from the plot.

This movie is in part that man meets woman cliché, but is rescued by an original plot and truly fantastic acting, because without that this movie would be nothing more that a typical Las Vegas downer.