TIFF ’03: The Cooler

*½/****
starring William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Maria Bello, Shawn Hatosy
screenplay by Frank Hannah & Wayne Kramer
directed by Wayne Kramer

by Bill Chambers A lame exercise in Mamet posturing, The Cooler has been subject to inexplicable pre-release hype for both its tame (by post-Irréversible standards) sex scenes and, allegedly, for being good. William H. Macy plays another variation on his stock nebbish, this one employed by the Shangri-La Casino to "cool" gamblers on a hot streak with his contagious bad luck–a premise that contains the potential to expose the heart of the most superstitious city in America. But writers Frank Hannah and Wayne Kramer (who also directed) can't leave well enough alone, giving Macy's Bernie Lootz (gimme a break) a ticking time-bomb boss (Alec Baldwin, gung-ho but deserted by the screenplay), a lubricious son (Shawn Hatosy), and a girlfriend-with-a-past (Maria Bello, in a well-modulated performance that's one of the film's few saving graces). The ballsiness of The Cooler's late-narrative contrivances almost conceals the pathetic lack of imagination that went into devising them, but this is a useless picture scarred from the start by Mark Isham's putrid light-jazz score, which does damage unknown since Lennie Niehaus's music for Tightrope. Doesn't change the fact that The Cooler is nearly unsalvageable, of course, but it shows the importance of a good soundtrack supervisor. Programme: Special Presentations