Main Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Reid
Summary: Lou is a small time gangster, who thinks he used to be something big. Nowadays, he spends most of his time taking care of an aging beauty queen who is sometimes his lover. He meets up with a younger girl, Sally, who is learning to be a casino dealer. Sally's husband, who had left Sally and eloped with her sister, turns up with drugs he has stolen from the Mafia. Sally's husband gets Lou to sell the drugs, but is killed before Lou can give him the money. Later, the owners of the drugs turn up and threaten to kill Sally if she doesn't return them. Now, Lou steps in to defend Sally and convince himself he can be a big shot.
Review: I first heard about this film in a book I read titled "The 101 Greatest Films of All Time", and this was #101. I wrote down the title somewhere simply because I saw it was about gangsters in one way or another, and kind of forgot about it. Then recently, I saw it for cheap in a video store, so I just decided to pick it up.
1980's Cinema is an area I'm not very familiar with, having only seen Thief, Raging Bull, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the Breakfast Club among scattered others. There's a certain feel to 80's movies, that kind of kitschy, tacky, but yet likeable style that attracted me, and Atlantic City definetly has this.
Burt Lancaster as Lou was great in the lead role. The story of a washed up gangster is a fairly common one, but Lancaster really brings a sense of vulnerability to it in his performance. At times, Lou seems to be decieving himself into thinking he's a big shot, or at least once was, but at other times seems resigned to his fate and his past as a low-life nobody.
Kate Reid is also excellent as the aging beauty queen Grace who Lou takes care of. The director, Louis Malle, really nicely sets up and portrays this love-hate relationship, and at times the viewer will find themselves siding with Lou, and yet at other times, sympathy falls with Grace.
The beginning of the film is formatted to cover three emerging storylines at once; Lou and Grace living in relative solitude in a shabby Atlantic City apartment building, Sally (Susan Sarandon) living paycheck to paycheck working in the glossy new casinos, and Dave (Robert Joy) and his young bride Chrissie (Hollis McLaren) hitchiking from Vegas to Philadelphia where they steal a mysterious package from the Mob, and then moving on to Atlantic City.
Malle moves seamlessly through these three storylines, with Atlantic City as the central theme running through all of them. The city itself takes on a nice sense of symbolism throughout the film. To Sally, the new casino industry is going to bring chances for a new beginning and perhaps financial stability. To Lou, the city seems to be falling apart, becoming too "wholesome" and commercialized, and losing its gritty and exciting edge like Lou used to know in the good old days.
Dave's part of the story, although the catalyst for the events in the rest of the movie, is actually fairly boring and predictable at times, and badly acted by Robert Joy. I hadn't noticed until the credits rolled that the characters name was actually Dave Matthews.
Susan Sarandon, looking very young here, also performs well, although at times, the central relationship between her character Sally and Lou felt kind of forced and unexplained. Whether this should be blamed on Sarandon's acting or Malle's direction, I'm not sure, I just wasnt convinced.
The film actually picked up towards the end, although Malle had a little trouble getting there it seemed. The final conflict between Lou and Sally sets up for an interesting conclusion.
***SPOILER***
After Lou kills the drug dealers, the following morning, Burt Lancaster has some of his best scenes in the film, laughing at the news reports on the television, giddy like a little child. He is really able to accurately convey a sense of pride in himself and at the same time show that he has gone slightly senile and delusional, as he has no qualms about pointing whole-heartedly to the front page headline "Drug Related Mafia Slaying Rip Atlantic City" and declaring proudly, "I did that!" I laughed aloud at this part, probably the best scene in the film.
***SPOILERS END***
This film will definetly need a couple rewatches, not because of a complex storyline or anything like that, just because after understanding the story, further examination should be paid to the actors performances individually. Im looking forward to rewatching Burt Lancaster especially, and perhaps Ill look to see other films he has worked in.
Overall, a solid film, dramaticly convincing, yet humorous when it needs to be, good performances by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, ultimately hampered by some pacing and story development problems in the mid-section of the film and some poor acting by most of the supporting cast.
Although I did especially enjoy the Robert Goulet cameo.
Direction – 17/20 Acting – 18/20 Story – 12/15 Rewatchability – 12/15 Music – 7/10 Depth – 8/10 Cinematography – 4/5 Supporting Cast – 3/5 TOTAL = 81%
