The Cooler: Critic Reviews

This picture is rescued from cliche by the quality of the acting, and Mr. Kramer wisely gives the actors room to work.

Had The Cooler stuck to its dark guns and not turned into a treacly, love-conquers-all fairy tale, this movie might have gone somewhere.

A surprising, ingenious film.

The Cooler is as much of a con as Vegas itself; that's the source of its charm.

[The] film never amounts to more than a cute idea stretched to poker-chip thinness.

I ended up mostly liking The Cooler.

A winning drama that's only slightly too pleased with its own playful conceits, The Cooler features strong performances and flows with the grace and assurance of a Sinatra song.

All cast members are superb.

A carefully assembled supporting cast gives The Cooler the grit that sells the magic.

The Cooler is old-fashioned in the way the Shangri-La is old-fashioned, and I mean that as a compliment. This is a movie without gimmicks, hooks or flashy slickness.

If you'd thought Macy had explored every nook and cranny of loserville in such movies as Fargo and Magnolia, think again: He makes Bernie into someone brand new.

Small-scale moviemaking about small-scale lives. But it's big in all the right ways.

Macy's layered characterization energizes a project that could have drowned in cliches.

A safe bet.

Baldwin grabs this part by the throat and never lets go, recapturing some of his memorable Glengarry Glen Ross persona.

Deserves to be seen for one of the most lyrically convincing sex scenes of the year, from the neck up as well as from the neck down, performed by Mr. Macy and Ms. Bello with genuinely engaging affection and amusement on a person-to-person level.

Directed with a couple of brass knuckles by Wayne Kramer, The Cooler turns into a disappointing fable in the end, but for most of its 101 minutes, it's a grim companion piece to Leaving Las Vegas.

The best thing Baldwin has done in years, and a triumph of low-budget storytelling by a director to watch.

A B-movie in the best sense: Unpretentious. Raffish. Just trashy enough to be six kinds of fun without making you hate yourself in the morning.

In reconstructing Macy's equal-opportunity loser persona as a romantic winner, The Cooler forgets what made its star so winning in the first place.

A movie without a compass, switching pace and direction as haphazardly as a caffeinated SUV driver on a cellphone.

William H. Macy and Maria Bello shine in a terrific -- and surprisingly sexy -- tale of a Vegas loser whose luck begins to turn.