Leaving Las Vegas (Figgis, 1995): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.05pm
This film is part of the Nicolas Cage season at the Prince Charles. Details here.
Time Out review:
Alcoholic scriptwriter Ben (Nicolas Cage) is blowing his options. Our first
glimpse sees his beyond-niceties collaring of an agent friend in a smart
restaurant to demand drink money, a symptomatic preamble to what's
staring him in the face: a 'sadly, we have to let you go' dismissal from
his studio job. Figgis sets the crap game running here: the pay-off
finances a one-way ticket to oblivion or, to give hell its name, Las
Vegas, city of permanent after-hours. Cash the cheque, burn the past,
take the freeway - we're in the booze movie, that most fascinatingly
flawed form of the modern urban tragedy. This modestly budget
masterpiece pools the Vegas streets with reflected neon and watches Ben
drown. Shue is good as the young hooker he falls for, but Cage is
extraordinary, producing an Oscar-winning performance of edgy, utterly
convincing suicidal auto-destruct. In fact, Figgis makes of him
something of an existential saint, a man for whom terminal
self-knowledge leads to a kind of grace. If the film lacks the depth and
structural sophistication of, say, The Lost Weekend (it was shot fast, with Declan Quinn's
saturated Super-16 photography blown up, which may explain its kinetic
buzz), it certainly has the courage of its convictions.
Wally Hammond
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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