Atlantic City (1981)

Sadly Over-hyped

Good movie but grossly overrated

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sally (Susan Sarandon) works at an Atlantic City casino oyster bar. She's learning french and card dealer. Her estranged husband Dave Matthews (Robert Joy) ran off with her younger sister Chrissie back in Saskatchewan. He steals a large package of cocaine in Philadelphia and arrives with a pregnant Chrissie looking to sell the drugs. He recruits Sally's next door neighbor and bookmaking old-timer Lou Pascal (Burt Lancaster). Lou has been caring for bed-ridden neighbor Grace Pinza and pining for the much younger Sally.Legendary French filmmaker Louis Malle creates an air of crumbling decay. The film got nominated for the five big Academy awards but won none of them. There is no denying the greatness of Lancaster but he got beat by another legend Henry Fonda. This is a movie of characters. These people exists at the edges. It doesn't have the needed intensity but the great actors keep the characters interesting.

Louis Malle created a poetic "Atlantic City," released in 1980 and starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Reid. Lancaster plays Lou, a small-time mobster from the old days of Atlantic City. He is handsome, dresses very grandly, and pretends that he used to be in the big-time. Actually he worked in some menial job for a mobster and now takes care of his widow Grace (Kate Reid) who appears bedridden at first. He takes care of her dog, makes her food, rubs her limbs to increase circulation, and occasionally sleeps with her. She's verbally abusive to him. Grace came to Atlantic City in the '40s as a contestant in a Betty Grable lookalike contest, met her future husband, and never left.Lou meets a young waitress and would-be croupier, Sally, and their lives soon collide. He's attracted to her. Sally's sister has run off with Sally's husband, and the two show up to stay with her. Her sister is pregnant. Sally's husband Dave is there to do a drug deal; he meets Lou and stores the cocaine in Lou's apartment. People are after him, so he sends Lou to someone's apartment on a delivery, and Lou is to pick up the money. When Lou arrives home after the errand, Dave is dead. The thugs didn't get their dope, so eventually they turn to Sally. In fact, Lou has the dope and also the money from the first delivery. And he plans on taking up where Dave left off.This is such a well-done film, hearkening back to the old days of Atlantic City just as the city is being rebuilt as a eastern Las Vegas. Lou is part of the old days; Sally is ambitious and wants to better herself. Lou, never anybody, now longs to be somebody for her.The acting is wonderful. Burt Lancaster is magnificent as Lou, an old man who still has young dreams. It's a very subtle performance, very touching and sometimes funny. Susan Sarandon does a great job as Sally, creating a totally believable character.John Guare has written a great script, the first important component of a film, and it was in the hands of a master, Louis Malle. The film was made in Canada, and I recognized many Canadian actors, but the location shots are excellent.Highly recommended, a sublime experience.

"Atlantic City" has a lot of good acting but I sure found it to be a thoroughly unpleasant film. You've got an aging petty crook (Burt Lancaster), a drug dealing user, a doormat of a woman (Susan Sarandon), her bizarre and spacey sister and a nasty old lady with an equally nasty dog--all of which are hard to care in the least about and one who is just thoroughly despicable. Throw them into a thoroughly seedy and run-down environment and you've got a film that I found oppressively awful and hard to watch or care about in any way. Obviously I am not the voice of everyone, as the film received five Oscar nominations--though I really cannot see why. For me to enjoy a film, in most cases I need to have SOMEONE that I can relate to or care about, but in this film there wasn't even one. By the time it was all over, I just felt I needed a bath and never wanted to see this film again.

There are actors that seem to be born to make great roles like the one played by Burt Lancaster in this film. A likable, charming, quite enigmatic but very friendly man named Lou Pascal, a old resident of Atlantic City who gets with his neighbor (Susan Sarandon) after the murder of her husband, Dave (Robert Joy), whom Lou recently met and started a business that might complicate the lives of everyone involved with him. Louis Malles's "Atlantic City" is a reminder that cities can be reborn and people's lives can do the same too as long as they know how to find each other in this complicated and dangerous world. The author of this is famous play-writer John Guare of the famous play "Six Degrees of Separation" and in this film we are reminded through the whole experience about the connections of life and how they work sometimes for good things, other times for bad things. And the city is constantly presented as a different place than in its older days, everything's being demolished (including the place where the main characters live) where new casinos will be made.Lou is a sad figure in the beginning, his mob days are over and now he's taking care of old lady (Kate Reid), wife of a old friend of his, and she keeps bothering this guy all the time, ringing his bell wherever she needs him. His resurrection will appear when he mets Dave and starts doing some drug dealing business that will give him a lot of money and also show to himself that life can be good again. And there's his close relation with Dave's wife, first watching her at distance while she baths herself with lemons (the beautiful opening scene); and then helping her after Dave's death. Destiny will prepare some surprises to these characters in this magnificent place called Atlantic City.The plot is easy to follow, very simple and very absorbing, very good written (the sequence of Dave's death is one of the most planned moments in film history with a thrilling chase through a car elevator). And the acting? The best possible! Lancaster and Sarandon have a great chemistry on screen, and like I said he was born to perform this role, can't imagine other actor playing. Sadly, it lost out all the five big awards in which was nominated for the Oscar, but at least, it built a enormous reputation within its audience and critics making one of the best films ever made in 1980's, a true cult film. Along with "Adieu Mon Enfants" (1987) this is Malle's best work in that decade and one of his finest. Watch it now if you can. 10/10