Is there any profession portrayed in cinema more likely to be an obnoxious alcoholic than an Hollywood screen writer? Well that's what "Ben" (Nicolas Cage) is and when he gets fired after one too many absences and foul-mouthed outbursts, he takes his redundancy cheque and his BMW and heads to Vegas. He doesn't have a plan, except perhaps to drink himself into a stupor from which he won't wake up. Meantime, we've met hooker "Sera" (Elisabeth Shue) who has a rather brutal relationship with her flaky pimp "Yuri" (Julian Sands) and works the Strip looking for high rollers to seduce. They meet in a casino and quickly conclude that there might be an element of safety, certainly sanity, in numbers and are soon living together platonically. What now ensues illustrates the perils for both as they continue down paths that seem destined to lead to self-destruction. "Sera" exposing herself to dangers every time she goes to work whilst "Ben" showers with two bottles of vodka to contain his increasingly dominant shakes. The soundtrack does much to help set the mood here, as these two people gradually fall in love - but it's not a sentimental love. It comes across more as a growing inter-dependency fuelled by affection and a desire to look out for each other - however doomed to failure we might anticipate that to be. Cage is on great form here, he really does carry of the role skilfully and plausibly - but I think Shue takes more of the plaudits for me. She allows her essentially quite decent character to thrive and to grow, demonstrating quite a degree of humanity even when faced with brutality and humiliation on a fairly regular basis. She also manages to give us a sense of a woman who is trying to escape but just doesn't know how. Mike Figgis keeps the pace taut and effective and with both on solid form with an actually quite emotional story, this is well worth two hours.
