#28: Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

My name is Ed and twice a week I watch a Nicolas Cage film, pick 6 numbers based on that film, and enter the UK National Lottery. I will win, and use the money to enact terrible revenge on all those that have wronged me.

It seems sort of unlikely now that he’s mainly known for his work in animated GIFs, but once upon a time Nicolas Cage did actually win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Leaving Las Vegas.

Cage more than earns his Oscar here — his performance as the alcoholic ruin of what was once Hollywood screenwriter Ben Sanderson is some of his best work. Though we join Ben right as he reaches his lowest ebb, we get just enough flashes of the brilliant man he was, might have been, to give us a sense of just how far he’s fallen.

Cage’s wild charisma, so often used to great comic effect, here becomes a tragic force — the life and soul of the party has burned himself out, and what remains is past hope, or even despair. As performance exercise, it’s certainly interesting. But unfortunately it’s also supposed to be a film.

Leaving Las Vegas is based on an apparently semi-autobiographical novel by a writer who ended up killing himself a weeks after the film went into production. As you might expect, it’s not a barrel of laughs, but the real problem with it is that it’s not much of a barrel of anything other than endless misery, to no real end.

The story follows Ben as he heads to Las Vegas after being fired from his job and deciding to torch what remains of his life (literally burning most of his possessions). He ends up connecting with Sera, a prostitute, who is not having a massively good time either, and they end up in a strange, rather sad relationship as both of their lives go from crappy to even crappier.

Elizabeth Shue does well with what she’s given, but it does appear to be all in the performance, rather than the fairly stock character (a sex worker who turns out to be actually be a nice person, you say?). And it’s never quite apparent why she makes such a quick connection with someone who appears to bring nothing to the relationship other than the occasional round of boozey vomit. Though there is almost enough chemistry between the actors to cover for this, it doesn’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

The film itself ends up so relentlessly bleak that it almost becomes a voyeuristic celebration of how awful life can be. Glamourising is not quite the word, but is the director (the miserablist Mike Figgis) really trying to suggest that there’s some sort of serene and meaningful beauty in dying of alcohol poisoning in a shitty motel room, as long as you’ve gotten to shag Elizabeth Shue first? No offence to Ms Shue, but I suspect there isn’t.

THE NUMBERS

2 — Part of Nicolas Cage’s research for this film involved going to Dublin and spending 2 weeks getting pissed up. Why not ask your boss if you can go to Dublin for 2 weeks and get pissed up as “ important research”?

4 — The wall of Ben’s motel room is decorated with a design of the 4 aces from a set of playing cards. Because it’s in Las Vegas, I expect.

5 — At one point Ben goes gambling and rolls the dice, wishing for ‘snake eyes’ — which means a double one in gambling. Snake Eyes is also the name of another Nicolas Cage film that I haven’t watched yet. Anyway, he actually gets a 5, which is presumably not as good.

12 — As Ben departs his home in Hollywood there are 12 bin bags of his stuff outside his house.

25 — Ben initially offers Sera 250 dollars to fuck him. He ends up giving her 500 and they just have a chat instead, although she does suck his willy for a bit first.

37 — Leaving Las Vegas is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by a guy called John O’Brien. Among other things he did before topping himself was writing part of the 37th episode of the children’s cartoon Rugrats. This isn’t referenced in Leaving Las Vegas.

THE RESULT

Just one number. Leaving Las Vegas is not apparently, my lucky film, so I will take this as a sign that I shouldn’t attempt to drink myself to death.

NEXT TIME ON NICOLAS CAGE:

The Rock, in which only one of the things that’s about to blow up is Nicolas Cage’s career as an action star!!!