Date: Fri 01-Dec-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-12

Quick Words:

Playing-Vegas-Cage-Shue-Figgis

Full Text:

(rev of Leaving Las Vegas , Now Playing, 12/1/95)

Now Playing-

"Leaving" An Emotional Wringer

By Trey Paul Alexander III

" Leaving Las Vegas is rated R. It includes nudity, profanity, sexual

situations, graphic language, overall raunchiness and an enormous amount of

drinking."

The above statement, taken from The New York Times ' review of Leaving Las

Vegas , just about sums it up. But in all fairness to the film - quite

possibly one of the most depressing to emerge from a Hollywood studio in

recent memory - that summary does not fully encapsulate all this movie

constitutes.

Basically, the film, playing at the Crown Cine Theatre, follows the final

weeks of Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage), an alcoholic on a self-destructive

tailspin. He is on his last, uncertain legs, but there is little ambivalence

in his mind about his inevitable, deadly destination. To that end, he

liquidates all his LA belongings and motors out to Las Vegas, the site of his

imminent "glory."

Part of what is interesting about the approach to Ben's story is that there is

little concern for what got him to this point of substance dependence. There

are allusions to his wife having left him, and a sequence in which we witness

him getting fired from his job. But none of the fingers of blame are pointed

here. As if to signify the issue as moot, Ben asks, "Did I start drinking

because my wife left me, or did she leave me because of the drinking?"

When he arrives in Vegas, Ben's shattering journey is slowed somewhat by an

encounter with another lost soul, Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a hooker working the

neon-lit streets. She is also given a sketchy motivation, with scattered

details of a life of prostitution in LA in which she was linked with a shady

pimp (Julian Sands). Scant time is given to this, and just as with Ben, the

film seems infinitely more interested in her current, forlorn state of

affairs.

But these two, apparently disconsolate individuals, each find safe haven in

the company of the other. Unwilling to be saved but searching for

understanding, Ben and Sera find something affirming in their time together.

But as a relationship grows and love begins to develop, can either be truly

content to just stand by and watch the steady disintegration of the other?

As you may have guessed, Leaving Las Vegas is not the kind of cinematic

pick-me-up that fosters holiday cheer. Just as The New York Times alluded,

there is more drinking in this movie's 112-minute running time than one could

ever witness in two hours at an actual bar... on New Year's Eve, no less!

But to director Mike Figgis' ( Internal Affairs , Stormy Monday ) credit,

there is no evidence of his glorifying Ben and Sera's decadent states of

being. To be sure, there is an eyeful of things better left unseen (and an

earful of coarse, uninhibited language), but Figgis never coats it with an

enticing sheen.

Too often, the slick stylings of many of today's filmmakers can make a seamy

side of life seem attractive or, at the very least, a laughable trifle. Not so

with Figgis' film. Cage's superb and gripping performance as the unstable Ben

is sure to never be confused with Dudley Moore's bumbling, comic drunk,

Arthur.

If there is one big mis-step, it is the occasional monologue by Sera, who

speaks as though she is sitting on a shrink's couch. Shue, veteran of such

lighter fare as Cocktail and Adventures in Babysitting , is surprisingly

effective, but it is Figgis' dialogue here that is much too pedantic and

affected. The narrative's chronicling of Ben and Sera's unraveling lives is

pedagogical enough. But when Sera comments about the beauty of their love due

to an unconditional acceptance of one another, it tends to ring hollow to

those who have sat through this emotional wringer.