Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Adaptation of John O’Brien’s novel, written and directed by Mike Figgis. 

Nicolas Cage is perfectly cast as an alcoholic who leaves Hollywood and travels to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. He meets a prostitute (Elisabeth Shue), who is also at a low ebb. (It certainly isn’t Pretty Woman.) 

The film suggests the possibility that the couple might somehow save each other from their fates, but it’s also intelligent enough not to present any easy solutions. It’s harrowing and heartbreaking to watch the situation unfold.

Cage and Shue are both stunning. I was completely convinced by them, together and apart. Their relationship is complex but believable, and the film follows it through to its logical conclusion without sentimentality or compromise.

Jason Bourne (2016)

Bourne again? 

The fifth instalment in the series and – as of 2021 – the final part. Jason (Matt Damon) is still at large, but thanks to the hacking by old pal Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) he now has extra information about his past – and an insight into what happened to his father. 

In many ways it’s the same film yet again, but it’s such a good film that it’s worth remaking. This time, Tommy Lee Jones plays the corrupt head of the CIA. There’s also stuff about internet privacy with a social media corporation called Deep Dream (led by Riz Ahmed), plus an ambitious young CIA tech wizard who may or may not be helping J.B. (Alicia Vikander as Heather Lee). 

Paul Greengrass directs again, delivering incredible action sequences. The car chase in Las Vegas is especially dynamic. 

If there’s a fault it’s that there’s little psychological development for Bourne. Yes, there’s a thread about his dad but he has even less dialogue than usual. I’d have liked him to have shared more of a relationship with Nicky, or at least some “meaningful” glances, but following the first film there seems to have been a conscious decision for the series to avoid romance. It makes sense plot-wise because Bourne can’t stay in the same place for a couple of minutes before men in cars and copters arrive to kill him. But it would still have been nice to give him the extra depth of reconnecting with the woman who loved him.

Casino (1995)

Lengthy, sometimes dense and extremely violent Martin Scorsese crime thriller. 

Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci play mafia men sent from Chicago to Las Vegas, scamming money off a casino’s profits for the bosses back home. They become rivals and enemies, which is a problem because Pesci’s character is essentially a psychopath. Meanwhile, Sharon Stone is an ex-prostitute who marries De Niro but is still attached to her pimp boyfriend played by James Woods.

It’s similar to Goodfellas in terms of subject matter and tone, but that film is far more appealing because it has a character you can relate to. There’s no one in Casino that you can identify with at all. Also, the violence is really disturbing – especially the head-in-a-vice and buried-alive scenes. I’m not sure I will ever get those images out of my mind.

The use of music was a little excessive. Countless great songs are jammed in, which is fun, but sometimes it's at the expense of light and shade. I craved a little more space.

De Niro is as good as ever, but it remains a flawed film that seems like it could have been a masterpiece and somehow didn’t turn out that way.

Pay It Forward (2000)

Extremely unusual drama set in Las Vegas and based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde. 

A pre-teenage boy called Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) is inspired by his new school teacher Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey) and his alcoholic mother Arlene (Helen Hunt) to start doing more good in the world. He creates a scheme based on passing on kind deeds, which ends up having a profound effect on others around him and beyond.

The film works because you can believe in the characters, who are given depth and complexity. In particular, Spacey and Hunt are credible as emotionally (and in Simonet’s case physically) scarred adults doing their best to hold things together. 

It’s different enough to be thought-provoking, unpredictable, touching and memorable. My only real criticism was that it seemed a little too easy for Arlene to stop drinking after she decided to do so. 

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Completely unbelievable casino heist thriller. Some of the 11 criminals are caricatures, while Brad Pitt just eats during every scene. There are too many things in the plot that simply couldn’t happen, such as when they need to create a power cut and so steal a big piece of scientific equipment to release an electromagnet pulse that plunges all of Las Vegas into darkness. The guy with the English cockney accent is plain embarrassing. Why do American films and TV shows so often completely misjudge how English people speak? 

George Clooney is charming as Danny Ocean and Andy Garcia is convincingly nasty as the evil casino owner, but it’s too visually stylised and self-conscious to let you ever become fully engrossed in the story. 

Would I watch it again? No.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Sean Connery’s sixth and final James Bond film (not including 1983’s unofficial Never Say Never Again) is one of the weirdest in the series. The tone is completely different – an uneasy blend of comedy and drama that often falls flat.

On the plus side, Charles Gray is excellent as the icy, ruthless Blofeld. And there’s a dramatic Las Vegas car chase that features the classic “car on its side down an alleyway” sequence. I liked the plot element about a cassette of marching tunes that needs to be switched with a lookalike cassette containing the control codes for a satellite threatening to obliterate cities from space.

On the downside, the daft henchmen Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are neither funny nor sinister and their scenes invariably jar with the rest of the film. And Jill St. John isn’t especially appealing as Tiffany Case.

The second half is stronger (from about the time Bond steals a moon buggy), but it’s unusually low on thrills. Even Bond almost being cremated alive doesn’t quite work because of the way the scene is edited.

I expect I will be singing the Shirley Bassey theme tune to myself for at least a week.