This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

just watch it!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello were RIGHTFULLY nominated for several awards, but unfortunately did not win many..What surprised me most was that William H.Macy was not even nominated for a single award, although I feel he has given an excellent performance in the tile role of "The Cooler"The movie has a good pace and is not dull for a minute.Excitement and anticipation are combined in the right proportion..The direction is smooth.. The movie should have done better at the box-office..Performances are truly worth watching.

William H. Macy plays Bernie Loots, a total loser whose bad luck rubs off on the gamblers at the Shangri La casino on Las Vegas. His boss is Shelly Kaplow, played by Alec Baldwin. Although Bernie gets a love interest (Natalie played by Maria Bello), at its heart "The Cooler" is a story about Bernie and Shelly.The gist of the movie is that Shelly runs the Shangri La in the old school way. If gambler can't pay up when he loses, Shelly pulls out the old school baseball bat and works out an arrangement. Shelly has the aging Buddy Stafford (Paul Sorvino) in the lounge nightly where Buddy pulls in several aging matrons for each performance. Well, maybe not that many. But Shelly keeps him on because Buddy is old school Vegas, a fixture for decades back in the day when Vegas had glamour. Sometimes I felt like the point about Shelly being old school was being driven home with a baseball bat, but apparently we needed the lesson.Macy does sadsack characters better than anyone, and Bernie is a sadsack with no hope. We see him wandering with his limp through the casino ("Bernie, party of 6, your table is ready" means someone is winning at table six) to stand beside someone on a roll, and they immediately crap out. He's called the cooler because whenever someone is on a hot streak, they send Bernie in and Bernie cools it. But he's a loser in all his life: When he orders a coffee, they just ran out of cream ("that's alright," he says softly. "It doesn't matter.") His cat left him. He lives alone in a single room occupancy motel.The plot kicks off when Bernie tells Shelly Bernie's leaving town; he can't stand it anymore. Bernie owed Shelly some money, and he's just worked it off, so he's bailing on the Shangri La. I won't give the plot away, but Shelly wants Bernie to stay, so he offers some benefits to keep Bernie around to make gamblers lose. The movie goes off on its own roll, with plot twists, changes, and updates to the Shangri La. Baldwin and Macy own the movie. Their acting is wonderful, and each character is totally believable. Shelly is a brutal mafia boss in Shangri La who stops at nothing. Nobody cheats him, no cash is left on the table when he does a deal, no prostitutes work in his casino without his okay and his cut -- he has his fingers in everything. And he willingly breaks fingers when people try to mess with his casino. Baldwin turns in a powerful performance. The plot is the classic boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, but Bernie and Shelly also meet, lose each other, and get each other back as friends. Bernie and Natalie work very well together (despite the 17-year age gap that Hollywood always plugs in). Their characters develop quite nicely, and their fall into love is very well done. It's a sweet story about two people who don't con each other in a town that's nothing but a con. Bernie and Natalie have a love story that brings Bernie out of his loser status and makes him unreliable as a cooler. When they fall in love, Bernie stands next to winners, and they win even bigger. Lady luck smiles on Bernie and everyone near him. The movie was originally rated NC-17 because of scenes between Bernie and Natalie showing their lovemaking. Macy made a personal appeal to the board and there was some re-editing to get the rating to R, but the scenes are still remarkable for their honesty. The violence and language appear not to have had a bearing on the NC-17 rating. I've seen "This Film Is not yet Rated," a documentary about the American rating process and its flaws. The documentary has a section on the rating tribulations of "The Cooler," and it shows some deleted scenes. I recommend seeing "This Film Is not yet Rated" for background on the screwed up American rating system.The interior shots were filmed in The Golden Phoenix, a Reno casino that was being renovated. In some irony or other, the casino was built as the Primadonna, then it became Del Webb's Sahara Reno Hotel, then it became the Flamingo Hilton Reno, before it was The Golden Phoenix. The building currently is the Montage, a condo, although the economy in Reno took a dive, and development is on hold, along with almost all the other highrise condos in the downtown area. Most of the exterior shots were also filmed in Reno, and those familiar with the town will recognize The Silver Legacy, The Town House Motor Lodge, the Nugget, and other locales.SPOILER If you haven't seen the movie, don't read here.Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase that refers to ancient Greek dramas. Sometimes the hero got himself into a bind that mere mortals couldn't resolve, so the crew lowered an actor in a basket, coming down from the heavens as it were - a god from a machine. The actor portrayed the appropriate god that could solve the hero's problems. This has long been considered bad writing. Some directors have played with the concept; in "Donnie Darko" Richard Kelly uses the concept directly - the bullies beating Donnie up are scared away by a guy pulling up in a car. Donnie says the phrase deus ex machina to describe the situation, and it literally is a god in a car.Here in "The Cooler," our director uses deus ex machina to save our hero and heroine in the end in a great parody of the device by having the couple saved by a drunk driver. It works here because Bernie's luck has totally changed, and Lady Luck is smiling on the couple. It's a great way to end the movie.

"The Cooler" is headed up by a very strong cast, led by two excellent actors - William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin - and with a strong supporting performance by Maria Bello. The story itself is a decent enough one, a little slow to develop at times, but interesting. Its greatest weakness is that if you're not a believer in luck - bad or good - then the whole thing comes across as somewhat implausible.Macy is cast as Bernie, a loser of a guy whose whole life screams bad luck. Some years ago Bernie got himself heavily in debt to Shelley (Baldwin), who runs a Vegas casino. Unable to pay off the debt, Bernie first gets his knee broken by Shelley, then finds himself hired by Shelley as a "cooler" - paying off his debt by using his bad luck to turn potential big winners into losers at the casino tables. Bernie has almost repaid his debt when his life becomes complicated by the unexpected appearance of Natalie (Bello), a waitress at the casino who ends up falling for Bernie. The feeling is mutual, and suddenly Bernie's bad luck turns good, and everyone he's around turns into a winner. This isn't good news for Shelley. Not only is his money not being repaid, but he's an old school casino manager who's under pressure from his own boss (who's brought in a younger guy to work with Shelley) to modernize his way of doing things. Shelley's growing desperation to hold onto his power, and its implications for Bernie and Natalie, becomes the focus of the movie.There's a few twists and turns scattered throughout this movie to keep it moving along, the look at the inside workings of a casino is interesting, and the performances by the three I've mentioned are quite good. I can't say this really blew me away, but it was pretty good. 6/10

William H. Macy is "The Cooler" for a Vegas casino in this 2003 film also starring Maria Bello and Alec Baldwin. Macy is Bernie Lootz, whose job it is to go from table to table and ruin the luck of winners on a hot streak just by standing there and letting his negative energy flow. He's a born loser, and his job is actually an arrangement to pay off his own gambling debts to the despicable Shelley (Baldwin). Shelley runs the casino, priding himself on the fact that it's out of the "Disney" and family/Steve Wynn loop, an old-fashioned establishment. When the big mob bosses come in and want some changes, Shelley resists.Bernie falls for a beautiful waitress Natalie (Bello) and finds his luck suddenly changing. He's quitting the casino anyway - now he wants Natalie to come with him. Then something happens that seems to tie Bernie to Shelley again.This is a very violent film with lots of bad language and good performances, particularly by Macy, who gives us a totally sympathetic character we can feel for and root for.I can't say this is my type of thing, but it's worth seeing for Macy.