Hey folks, Harry here... Now this sounds like a fun movie. First off any film starring William H Macy is ace in my book. And this sounds great, watch out for the spoilers, otherwise... enjoy....
Hey Harry,
Just from reading your OCEAN'S ELEVEN review, I can tell that you're going to love this new indie film from Ed Pressman's new ContentFilm company called THE COOLER (aka LUCK BE A LADY).
William H. Macy is attached to play the lead -- a guy who is the unluckiest fuck in Vegas. He is so unlucky that his bad luck rubs off on other people if they get close to him. The last holdout "mob" casino in Vegas, The Shangri-la, uses this guy to get close to winning high rollers and kill their action.
The character of the Cooler, Bernie, is in debt to this casino and is working it off by acting as a cooler for them. But he's almost made good on his debts and has told the casino director that he's leaving Vegas in a week - and the casino director, a guy named Shelly Kaplow, is sweating it bad because his mob boss and cronies have arrived in town to basically tell him the Shangri-la is going to be turned into one of these new Disneyland style behemoths. This isn't the time for the casino to suddenly start losing its edge. His attitude toward the plans for the new Shangri-la is over his dead body, and he has this great fucking speech where he tears into Steve Wynn (literally refers to him by name) for ruining Vegas, accusing Wynn of turning a thousand dollar a night gorgeous call girl into a cheap, dirty, stretch-marked hooker.
But the real twist in the script comes when Shelly sets the Cooler up with a sexy cocktail waitress who's supposed to fuck his brains out on a continual basis and keep him in vegas - but the situation backfires and she falls in love with him, giving him "ladyluck." Now all the high rollers Bernie gets close to are starting to win. Which totally fucks Shelly's position up.
I know this film sounds humorous, but there's a lot of shocking violence in it as well. I only read it once a few months ago, but if you can, try to get hold of the script. It's by Wayne Kramer, the guy who wrote Renny Harlin's new flick MINDHUNTERS. Kramer's also directing it.
I think it's already started production or due to start soon.
The Croupier
