Customer Reviews

Leaving Las Vegas

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

After reading several reviews about this film I feel that many people are missing the point of it. This is NOT a movie about alcoholism. If it were then it would be about Ben's battle against alcohol, or at the very least Sera attempting to persuade Ben to battle it, but other than a few feeble attempts (asking Ben to go see a doctor, asking Ben if he wants her to help him) she leaves Ben alone, much like she promised.

This is a love story, and a great one at that. This is a different kind of love story than you usually come across because both Ben and Sera accept one another for who they are, they do not try and change one another even if it would be for the better. It's not that the characters are pleased with each other's problems, or even that they are indifferent about them, but they accept them. They learn to look past the other's flaws and are able to find love.

This movie shows that anyone is able to find love, no matter how screwed up their lives may be. It shows that you often find love when you are least expecting it. After all I'm sure Ben's suicide would have been much quicker had he not met Sera. And if Sera hadn't have met Ben she wouldn't have to feel the pain of losing someone she loves. But they found each other anyways and for those couple weeks that they were together they seemed happy. The depressing part of this film is that it also shows that love is simply not enough. Even though Ben loved Sera it was not enough to save his life.

I would give this film 4.5 stars if it were an option, it loses the half star because of the soundtrack. While many people may love the soundtrack I don't care for it, even though it is fitting and really sets the atmosphere, it becomes repetitive and at times drowns out some of the dialogue. Regardless, I still recommend watching this film at least once, even though at times it can be difficult to watch. I rarely come across films that hit me this hard and stay with me for this long. It is one of the most powerful films you will ever see.

i could go on and on but i wont, the facts are a) this is probably the most dramatic movie ever made and b) nic cage is the best actor on the planet. holy smokes was he amazing in this and elisabeth shue is perfect by all standards. i also dig "the third man" tributes in there - good job all around tonite i decided this is my favorite movie....which might last a week but it will remain top five forever. I know its a little late but seriously...congrats nic cage you kick ass.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Leaving Las Vegas, upon release, was praised for what a powerful film it was. I didn't watch it up until about a couple of years ago. Mainly because I'm not a Nicolas Cage fan. But this is undeniably one of the greatest performances of the 1990's. Elisabeth Shue also turns in a raving performance, as a Vegas call girl. Ben (Cage in his Oscar-winning role) is a movie executive whose also a hopeless alcoholic. After losing his job and family, Ben sets off to Las Vegas with his severance pay, to drink himself to death. Along the way he meets a beautiful call girl by the name of Sera (Shue in her Oscar-nominated role) and soon after they fall for each other. Neither one of them is ever tearing the other down for their problems and seem to find peace with one another. This movie works on many levels. The main one is the love story -- that's anything but conventional. The other is the alcohol. We watch Ben kill himself slowly with massive ammounts of alcohol-- at some point, wishing he would just say no. The same for Sera, who is a genuine character you care about, you just want her to say no. I'm hoping MGM will release a nice little 2-Disc set for this movie. Some extras would be nice -- especially some deleted scenes and maybe some behind-the-scenes. The DVD -- both sound and video wise -- is excellent, it just lacks special features. All in all, the movie is one of the best of 1995 -- considering that it was up against such greats as Braveheart and Dead Man Walking.

Leaving Las Vegas was nominated for 4 Academy Awards including:
Actor In A Leading Role -- Nicolas Cage {"Ben"}
Actress In A Leading Role -- Elisabeth Shue {"Sera"}
Directing -- Mike Figgis
Best Adapted Screenplay -- Mike Figgis

The 2 viewers who talked about how 'boring' and 'lame' this movie is and the crack about 'getting to AA'--you're completely missing the point of the movie. Perhaps you should stick to the simpler stuff. The POINT of the movie is not about alcoholism, it is about total acceptance of one another--a trait that few people in life seem to master well, (even with people without the issues that the characters Ben and Sera have). Yes, it is sad and I wouldn't advise someone to watch it if they're depressed--but the performances of Cage and Shue are incredible and touching. It is a powerful movie which reflects true unconditional, albeit tragic, love.

When I heard that someone had finally made a movie based on the Cheryl Crow hit "I'm Leaving Las Vegas", I knew I had to see it. I was certainly not disappointed. Nicolas Cage turned in his best performance since his role as stoner slacker Jeff Spicoli in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". One important thing to note before you purchase this is that unlike his other Las Vegas movie, "Honeymoon in Vegas" where he dresses up like Elvis and skydives, this is not a comedy, unless you happen to think someone drinking themselves to death is funny. If you DO think self-destructive alcoholism is funny, then get ready to laugh your head off because that is what Nicolas Cage's character is all about. As he spirals towards his demise, he meets hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Elizabeth Shoe who tries to save him from
himself. I could go on but I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. I missed 5 minutes out of the middle because I had to take an important call, but I had no problem catching up with the plot, so I guess that means the movie could have been edited a little better. The only thing that keeps me from giving this 5 stars is that the sound mix was a tad muddy for my ears, although most non-audiophiles probably won't notice.

I saw this movie several times in the theatre and bought it when it came out on video. It had a tremendously melancholic effect on me for days. I imagine that many people who enjoyed the movie could somehow relate to it, even if in an abstract way. Nick Cage's portrayal of Ben, a man who has hit rock bottom and has lost his will to live, is incredibly powerful and moving; and so is Elisabeth Shue's portrayal of Sera.

After having lost all control to his alcohol addiction, Ben's life starts to spiral downhill once he loses his family, and subsequently, his job. Ben decides to take a trip to Vegas, but not before taking everything he owns and burning it (a sign that he will not be returning). He goes to Vegas with nothing but the clothes on his back, a huge stockpile of booze, just enough money for a room at the Whole Year Inn (which he reads as "The Hole You're In"), and enough booze to binge on until he dies.

Along the way he meets Sera, a prostitute, and seems to feel a personal connection with her. They do not hit-it-off immediately, but the two connect later during their time together. Their bond becomes passionately deep and Sera gets attached to Ben emotionally. Ironically, Ben is smitten with Sera, and he knows he could start a new life and love with Sera, were it not for the fate he has indomitably accepted.

Although most people would judge and condemn a man like Ben in real life, I was very sympathetic to the character and his pain. I also felt Sera's humanity pierce through the cold wall she puts up as a defense mechanism. Ben has touched her in a way that no one has, and though at first she accepts Ben's death wish as a condition for their new "relationship," Sera becomes conflicted about losing Ben--creating a distraction that Ben had not intended on.

This is a great movie with excellent performances from both its stars. Just don't expect to walk away feeling hopeful or happy; because as it is in reality, life does not always have a happy ending, and this movie is a depiction of that reality.

This is a piece of junk that smells like TYPICAl hollywood from its very first few seconds. I can't stand watching movies so set out to impress, and so devoid of any emotionality as this. But, what completely shatters whatever hope you have left of the film, is the acting. Cage displays some of the most blatant, and pathetic overacting I have seen in my entire life.At times, watching his overacting was almost funny, but at times it was just gruesome. Shue just seems detached. See, the problem with all these so-called actors, is that I can actually see them acting. The plot is also riduculous. How completely gone do you have to be to agree to let a man you supposedly have feelings for "drink himself to death"??

Most intelligent moviegoers are familiar with the art-house lexicon: the language of "minimalism", "ennui", and "noire". In this film, such dramatic tools are used to service a self-indulgent piece of overripe Hollywood posturing.

Are these arresting characterizations? Tour-de-force performances? Impeccably executed technique? Yes, yes and yes. It is all of these things. Yet, it remains a bad experience.

It isn't a bad experience because it is depressing. A tragedy like King Lear is far more depressing, and remains a masterpiece notwithstanding. Nor is it a bad experience because of its depth of despair. Some of the greatest operatic works wallow in despair. It is a bad experience because it tries to make something deep out of something shallow. It tries to say something about life in the context of broken lives and lost hope, but it fails. And it fails for the most inexcusable of reasons: it sells out redemption for cliché.

Consider: here is a man intent on drinking himself to death. He isn't just toying with the notion, crying out for help, or too messed up to think clearly. On the contrary, he achieves a level of clarity when he is on the sauce that he cannot attain when sober. He really is set on killing himself. It's just that he chooses to go about it in the most leisurely and self-indulgent way possible: a process that allows him to make a grand gesture of his death while pulling the woman he professes to love into his self-destructive vortex. Most critics have hailed this film as an exploration of selflessness. But I can't think of anything more selfish. Were he selfless, he would have just blown his brains out and made an end of it. Instead, we are treated to the spectacle of a terminal malingerer who lacks the courage to either live or find healing, yet is resourceful enough to methodically arrange his own death with pathological flourish.

Consider next the woman. The film makes a big thing over the fact that she gets so much out of her relationship with the man that his meaningless death somehow redeems her. But to accept this, we must first accept that giving ones love to an unworthy soul is a noble thing. Indeed, that love need not connect to anything of value whatsoever. What makes him worthy of her love? His boyish looks? His terminal vulnerability? His flashes of inebriated wit and shallow charm? There's nothing on offer but style. This man lacks any sort of character or substance. And the consequent superficiality of their relationship cheapens love and turns her ostensible redemption into cliché.

It is too easy to criticize this love story by comparing it to a classic screen romance like, say, Casablanca. So let us compare it to another little known art film by the magnificent Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. In Ikiru, he tells the story of a different dying man; an insignificant cog in a vast grey bureaucracy who, after finding out that he is dying, falls in love with a co-worker and decides to devote himself to realizing the perhaps one and only meaningful achievement in his life. Kurosawa elevates a life of little significance into one we deeply care for and builds an affectionate romance out of seeming straw because he understood something that the creators of Leaving Las Vegas do not: that for love to move us, it must be earned. The little bureaucrat earns our compassion because he shows himself worthy of his co-worker's affection, and thereby, of ours. If he accomplishes nothing else before he dies, he has managed to create a small space of happiness for others to enjoy. We appreciate and respect him. And it is this respect, even for the smallest of heroes, that is at the heart of all tragedy. Without it, tragedy cannot exist. Without it, erstwhile tragedy is exposed as fraud.

Leaving Las Vegas is a manipulative fraud, because in Cage's character, there is nothing worthy of respect.

Most of the professional critics went gaga over this one. This just confirms my suspicion that film critics are routinely subjected to so many bad films that they take leave of their sanity when style is well flaunted, even when it overwhelms all substance. Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue certainly make two very photogenic losers. And their performances are undeniably superb. But the margins of society are not photogenic. Meaningless suicide is not superb. And death by alcohol makes no deep existential statement about the fragility of life, of love, or of anything else.

In the film, Cage's character was employed as some sort of screenwriter. There is an unintended irony here. Only a product of Tinseltown would consider the character portrayed by Cage as noble or as one worthy of considered reflection. This film is but another example of Hollywood charm used in the service of cool superficiality, art-house dissipation and mannered depravity. Hollywood's continuing worship of such smelly banality exposes the depth of its moral sink.

This kind of movie is an acquired taste.

That said, every emotion in this film rang true for
me. These people seemed real and very vulnerable, especially Elizabeth Shue. It was just spare enough to say the important things in the relationship, leaving out all the detritus and other pointless details.

Mike Figgis really looked closely at these people at their worst moments and didn't flinch. I was fascinated - it spoke right to the deepest part of the human condition.

This is a rare work of art that will outlast us.

This is one of the rare occasions where I think this movie was actually better than the book. Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue bring a depth and vulnerability to their film characters that the more detached characters in the book seemed to lack. The result is a heartbreaking story about two people who, while hitting rock bottom, find true love. Ben, a suicidal alcoholic, and Sera, a prostitute, are the kind of people that the rest of the world likes to sweep under the rug. So since neither character has any pretense, any ego, or anything really to lose, they are able to come together and love each other in a sincere and unconditional way. The result is that the film, although incredibly sad, is also strangely inspiring.