Losers' love story about an all-day drinker and a lady of the night. (What passes for sweet talk: "You're like some kind of antidote that mixes with the liquor and keeps me in balance.") There is nothing convincing about the essential storyline, not the level of convenient coincidence (the pair, before they're a pair, keep bumping into one another on the Vegas Strip, and the man bumps unknowingly into the woman's pimp in a pawnshop as well, and into the pimp's future assassins at a gas station), nor the underlying adolescent daydream of Instant and Total Acceptance-As-I-Am, nor the overlying pretense of Pulling No Punches. Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, while he cannot keep clear of the perilous clichés of the Funny Drunk, is convincing individually as a man determined to drink himself literally to death. And Elisabeth Shue, all grown up and anxious to show it, copes unflinchingly with dialogue that cries out for an immediate chaser of mouthwash. (But what is the format, the occasion, of those gap-filling interview segments?) Director Mike Figgis makes excellent use of the gaudy Vegas color palette, and the blown-up 16mm film stock looks surprisingly well, and the movie overall carves a special niche in the Lost Weekend genre through the sheer volume of alcohol consumed. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd
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