Leaving Las Vegas
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Graham Beckel, Kim Adams, Nicolas Cage, Shashi Bhatia, Valeria GolinoDVD: 2 Sides, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-01-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Leaving Las Vegas
Movie Review: The obviousness of the plot made me less sad - 3.5 stars
Summary: 3 Stars
Cage and Shue perform wonderfully together and with deep respect for their characters' loneliness and vortex of loss. The movie succeeds both as a love story and a tragedy. All of it is summed up when Ben (Cage) looks up to Sera (Shue) and says, "You can never, never ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?" Ben's face captures the certainty of the proximity of his mortality and the eternity of his sadness: This is not an overstatement. The movie is that sad.
Yet I am annoyed by the mediocre production of such a great story. The editing is odd and renders a choppy, far too predictable plot. For a sad movie to work completely, something at least must remain unexpected. Likewise, the viewer cannot totally be absorbed by the film, because there is too much movement between the action of the present and that of the future. Usually, such movements build the drama rather than act as tangents. It feels thrown together at times. Not only that, but the viewer goes many minutes without hearing from one of the main characters, Ben. Sure, he's off drinking somewhere, but where? And what does it look like again? Show us! Some of the expendable characters' stories detract rather than add to the film. What is the point of Yuri (Julian Sands), Sera's pimp, in the long run? He takes up too much time in the film and eventually he and his story leave the film entirely. And Dennis Miller's face atop every taxi is just distracting.
Why does nearly every female character either look like, act like, or actually is a prostitute? The only female voice of reason in the film is a fed up hotel manager.
In the end, the movie can't decide if it is Ben's or Sera's story, yet I suspect that we are to think of the story as hers. I generally forgive the film its faults, but I'm just not as sad as I know I could be had the film been better produced.
Kudos to Cage and Shue.
Summary of Leaving Las Vegas
One of the most critically acclaimed films of 1995, this wrenchingly sad but extraordinarily moving drama provides an authentic, superbly acted portrait of two people whose lives intersect just as they've reached their lowest depths of despair. Ben (Nicolas Cage, in an Oscar-winning performance) is a former movie executive who's lost his wife and family in a sea of alcoholic self-destruction. He's come to Las Vegas literally to drink himself to death, and that's when he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute who falls in love with him--and he with her--despite their mutual dead-end existence. They accept each other as they are, with no attempts by one to change the other, and this unconditional love turns Leaving Las Vegas into a somber yet quietly beautiful love story. Earning Oscar nominations for Best Director (Mike Figgis), Best Adapted Screenplay (Figgis, from John O'Brien's novel) and Best Actress (Shue), the film may strike some as relentlessly bleak and glacially paced, but attentive viewers will readily discover the richness of these tragic characters and the exceptional performances that bring them to life. (In a sad echo of his own fiction, novelist John O'Brien committed suicide while this film was in production.) The DVD features uncut, unrated footage that was not included in the film's theatrical release. --Jeff ShannonBest Actor Oscar?(r) winner* Nicolas Cage and Best Actress nominee* Elisabeth Shue set the screen ablaze in this profoundly moving love story. Nominated* for two additional Academy Awards?(r)Director and Adapted Screenplaythis emotionally charged powerhouse of a film graced over 100 10 Best Lists including Roger Ebert's #1 Movie of the Year. Ben Sanderson (Cage) is a career alcoholic who has hit rock bottom. Trashing all personal and professional ties to his L.A. existence, he sets off for the lights of Vegas on a mission: to drink himself to death. There he meets Sera (Shue), a beautiful, seen-it-all hooker. From the moment Ben and Sera connect, they form a unique bond based upon unconditional acceptance and mutual respect that will change each of themforever. In the words of David Thompson of Los Angeles Magazine, Leaving Las Vegas is a masterpiece. *1995
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