If Owning Mahowney wasn't a real story with a gambling-addicted, bad-luck protagonist that was ultimately incarcerated for embezzlement, its sequel might have been The Cooler, which is about a former casino junkie who parlayed his monumental bad luck into a gig where he's paid to stand near hot gamblers in an attempt to quell their good fortune.  It's funny that both of these films starred Hollywood's two biggest sad-sack performers – Philip Seymour Hoffman and William H. Macy, respectively – who are each so heartbreakingly believable in their Eddie Mush-esque roles, you can't imagine anyone else tackling their parts.

Unfortunately, Hoffman and Macy have something else in common (besides appearing together in David Mamet and P.T. Anderson films):  They're trapped in pictures that are, as a whole, rather disappointing.  If you're looking for a strong movie about gambling, luck and the ability to affect the fortunes of others, do yourself a favor and seek out Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's far superior Intacto.  But if you're afraid of subtitles, keep reading.

Macy (Seabiscuit) plays Bernie Lootz, the “cooler” for the fourth-rate, old-school Golden Shangri-La Casino in Las Vegas. Bernie walks with a limp because somebody whacked him in the knee when he couldn't pay a staggering gambling debt years ago. Since then, Bernie has been working off the debt at the Shangri-La and has only one week left before he's square with his creditor.

The "cooler" thing, in case you're wondering, refers to Bernie's ability to jinx gamblers who happen to be on a particularly good run...just by touching them, or standing in their vicinity.  If someone's luck has just headed south, Bernie is bound to be found, Zelig-like, somewhere in the nearby crowd.  The Shangri-La's manager, Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin, The Cat in the Hat) pays Bernie to hobble over to “hot” tables and “cool” them off.

The main story in The Cooler involves Bernie and Shangri-La cocktail waitress Natalie (Maria Bello, Auto Focus) striking up a strange sexual relationship.  Suddenly, the unlucky guy with dead houseplants, a missing cat and the inability to get cream for his coffee at the casino bar is sitting on top of the world (and, sadly, he sits there naked more than once – I've seen enough of Macy's ass to last me a while).  Thanks to Natalie's apparently magic poontang, Bernie's luck has taken a 180-degree turn.  But he still has many an obstacle to overcome, including the re-appearance of his estranged son (Shawn Hatosy, John Q.) and his pregnant fiancé (Estella Warren, Kangaroo Jack), as well as the sudden grumpiness of Shelly, who is also being hounded by corporate casino types (led by Band of Brothers' Ron Livingston) bent on modernizing the Shangri-La.  Shelly does, however, gain the super-power of x-ray vision at some point during the film, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Debut writer-director Wayne Kramer, who co-wrote the script with first-timer Frank Hannah, has the difficult task of giving The Cooler both a hard (the rough-and-tumble world of Nevada gaming) and soft edge (the off-kilter romance between Bernie and Natalie).  Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do, but Kramer doesn't come close to nailing it.  Instead, we get Mamet-Lite® dialogue in the form of empty yet forcefully delivered speeches (mostly from Baldwin, who is just doing the Mamet shtick from Glengarry Glen Ross, with largely less aplomb) and sex scenes with full-frontal nudity that appear to be included merely to titillate.

There are certainly worse films than The Cooler, but for an indie flick with this kind of cast and a holiday release date (read: Oscar bait), you would expect something with a little more oomph than this.

1:41 –

for strong sexuality, violence, language and some drug use