When a failed Hollywood screenwriter goes to Las Vegas intent
on drinking himself to death, the last thing he expects to do
is fall in love - especially not with a prostitute he picks up
on the strip.
But Mike Figgis' Leaving Las Vegas is no Pretty Woman.
A powerful and bleak film, it is a study of both acceptance and
despair. The film recounts the short time the couple spend together
and the relationship the relationship that develops in an incisive
and affecting way, eliciting compassion for both the drunk who
stumbles home from a breakfast shopping trip covered in blood
and the prostitute who buys him a hip flask.
As the alcoholic Ben exorcising his demons for the last time,
Nicolas Cage is awesomely heartbreaking as he roves the bars and
gambling halls like a bewildered animal. Meanwhile Elisabeth Shue,
his 'guardian angel', is a revelation in her first leading role.
While Figgis' overwrought and mawkish score occasionally drowns
out his beautiful photography, at other times it so strongly evokes
neon-crazy Vegas - the ultimate American dream turned sour - you
can almost taste the dusty and soulless air of this insomniac
city.
Reviewed by Monika Maurer
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