I don’t even remember why I had “Leaving Las Vegas” on my list of movies to see. After watching it I might think of a few reasons though…
Directed by: Mike Figgis
Genres: Drama, Romance
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands, Richard Lewis, Steven Weber, Kim Adams, Emily Procter, Stuart Regen, Valeria Golino, Graham Beckel, Al Henderson, Shashi Bhatia, Carey Lowell, Anne Lange, Thomas Kopache
IMDB raintg: 7.5
My rating: 6.0 [rate 6.0]
This film is a romantic drama and it’s good at what it is. Perhaps I would have liked it a lot more if I didn’t meet any drunks and hookers in my life. But I had, and it spoiled the film for me greatly. Both having lots of sex with lots of different people in circumstances that are out of control and consuming lots of hard alcohol on a regular basis change human beings a lot. From what I gather, it is impossible to do one of these two things and stay the same. It is not possible to control the changing process either.
This movie pictures a hard friendship and romantic relationship between a hooker and a drunk. I had to always tell myself that these are just two abstract people with some strange disorders and things like that. I couldn’t believe that they were what the film tried to show they were. There weren’t. There was too much sweetness and no bitterness. Both of these people were too adecvate. Not even remotely close to real life.
Other than this issue, the film is very good. The story unfolds nicely, there is great music and some good acting. Photography was amazing too. There were some unnecessary and undeveloped storylines that could have been simply dropped, because they didn’t add anything. But these weren’t too distracting either.
Anyway, if you are in the mood for a romantic drama don’t be afraid to pick this one up. It’s a good movie. Not very realistic, but good.