CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS AND MEH
This is a very, nay extremely moderate puff of nothingness of a film: a film that trundles along very slowly like a ponderous and very cheap ripoff of the Ocean's Eleven formula, were it not that it was actually made back in 1975: 25 years before the all-star Soderbergh movies and 15 years after the Frank Sinatra original. It's still a Vegas casino heist movie but with no thrills or suspense, none of the easy-going charm of the shiny 90s trilogy (I kind of enjoy them but they are quite brazenly silly) and even less fun than the tiresome 1960 film: it's fatally underpowered by a lack of star power and a minuscule budget.
Oddly, Crown International Pictures' own website categorises Las Vegas Lady as a comedy but it's really a mild action thriller in which three women (led by Stella Stevens) are hired to rob a top hotel casino of the wads of cash kept hidden in the office of the despicably sleazy manager (George DiCenzo) during a high-stakes craps game in the next room. To do this one of the girls has to switch shifts with the kitchen staff in order to get a trolley up to the penthouse, and another has to scale the outside of the building mysteriously dressed in black so she absolutely won't blend in with the gleaming white and brightly illuminated front of the hotel. All this without knowing who their mysterious taskmaster is (although it's scarcely a shock when he's finally revealed to be exactly who you thought it was).
It's a pretty mediocre time waster notable principally for it being only the second film to boast an Alan Silvestri soundtrack, and even that's not much of an attraction: he may have gone on to score Predator, Back To The Future and Marvel Avengers Assemble (admittedly also the remake of Father Of The Bride) but Las Vegas Lady is a pretty negligible starting point. It's a dull film with nothing in the way of chases and fights or suspense and excitement. Despite going to the BBFC back in 2010, it doesn't appear to be available in this country; the DVD I watched was an import. We're not missing anything.
*
1 comment:
"It's a pretty mediocre time waster notable principally for it being only the second film to boast an Alan Silvestri soundtrack, and even that's not much of an attraction: he may have gone on to score Predator, Back To The Future and Marvel Avengers Assemble (admittedly also the remake of Father Of The Bride) but Las Vegas Lady is a pretty negligible starting point."
Everybody has to start somewhere - I don't think anyone who saw Desperately Seeking Susan in 1985 would have foreseen prestigious assignments galore and umpteen Oscar nominations (plus an Emmy) for Thomas Newman.
Post a Comment