Atlantic City (1980) - |July 14•2006|
Burt Lancaster plays Lou, a supposed gangster slowly watching his beloved Atlantic City dying a slow death as a new more modern place is on the horizon. He falls in love with Susan Sarandon's Sally, a croupier traveling wannabe whose rotten drug dealing thief decides to bother her again{he is the reason she loses a possible chance in Vegas}. Soon her dead beat lowlife happens upon Lou, who has been yearning for Sally a long time{they are neighbors..he watches her bath her naked flesh with lemons}, and proposes a partnership of sorts for distributing coke to a rich man. The dead beat husband knocked up Sally's sister, Chrissie(Hollis McLaren)who is too impressionable for her own good. You have an amusing turn by Michel Piccoli as Joseph, the man who trains card dealers so that they won't lose focus if a group of con artists try to read and cheat. Soon the dead beat husband(Robert Joy, who fits the bill)is murdered when the ones whose cocaine he stole find him. They will soon go after Sally who has no clue that Lou is the man with the dope and money that was to go into her husband's hands. Soon Lou and Sally will fall in love as Lou pays for the dead beat husband's airlift and burial in Canada. The money and coke, though, will be sought after as the hoods who murdered the dead beat husband will probe Sally for what actually belongs to them.
The film's seedy drug and money sub-plot is merely a diversion or plot point to set up the meeting between Lou and Sally as they find the spark despite their age gap. Burt Lancaster seems to have found the sad tragedy behind the supposed mob guy. He lives a lie and deceives himself often, only realizing his whole life is a joke in a moment of clarity when the hoods, who find Sally and smack her around for information about the drugs and loot, hold him at bay as he couldn't protect her. The other moment of realization comes when he shoots and kills them as they plan to do Sally harm and end their meetings on a sour note.
Kate Reid steals every scene as Grace Pinza, an elderly widow of famed mobster Cookie Pinza, for who she constantly reminds Lou of his failings as a real mobster as he takes care of her. She is pretty much an arthritic head case who doesn't cease to remind Lou where he'd be without her. Underneath all this is a bond they truly have. Lou really does depend on Grace and vice versa. She is another reminder of a past Atlantic City that now is a decaying relic.
What Lou and Sally develop over the course of the film is magic. I totally really only thought of their age gap glancingly for they just spark and function on screen so well. There's a great scene where Lou admits to peeping in on Sally's lemon bathing and she seems so turned on by his honesty and in, especially, how Lou describes it in such erotic detail. It's an event in Lou's life, every night, that actually brings feeling. I think that them finding each other brought life back into Lou. As the film closes, we know that Lou and sally was never meant to be. She could leave Atlantic City, but Lou is too much of a fixture. He, in a sense, is Atlantic City, just like Grace and that old decaying building that will soon be driven to the ground giving way to a new more modern age.
The film's seedy drug and money sub-plot is merely a diversion or plot point to set up the meeting between Lou and Sally as they find the spark despite their age gap. Burt Lancaster seems to have found the sad tragedy behind the supposed mob guy. He lives a lie and deceives himself often, only realizing his whole life is a joke in a moment of clarity when the hoods, who find Sally and smack her around for information about the drugs and loot, hold him at bay as he couldn't protect her. The other moment of realization comes when he shoots and kills them as they plan to do Sally harm and end their meetings on a sour note.
Kate Reid steals every scene as Grace Pinza, an elderly widow of famed mobster Cookie Pinza, for who she constantly reminds Lou of his failings as a real mobster as he takes care of her. She is pretty much an arthritic head case who doesn't cease to remind Lou where he'd be without her. Underneath all this is a bond they truly have. Lou really does depend on Grace and vice versa. She is another reminder of a past Atlantic City that now is a decaying relic.
What Lou and Sally develop over the course of the film is magic. I totally really only thought of their age gap glancingly for they just spark and function on screen so well. There's a great scene where Lou admits to peeping in on Sally's lemon bathing and she seems so turned on by his honesty and in, especially, how Lou describes it in such erotic detail. It's an event in Lou's life, every night, that actually brings feeling. I think that them finding each other brought life back into Lou. As the film closes, we know that Lou and sally was never meant to be. She could leave Atlantic City, but Lou is too much of a fixture. He, in a sense, is Atlantic City, just like Grace and that old decaying building that will soon be driven to the ground giving way to a new more modern age.
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