Intermission: All aces: 'The Cooler' deals up winning hand

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

The next time you're feeling unlucky or that things aren't going your way, take a look at Bernie Lootz, the title character in writer/director Wayne Kramer's new film "The Cooler."

Played to utter perfection by William H. Macy ("Fargo," "Magnolia") the character is an extreme example of a type of person employed by top casinos around the world.

In real life, if a casino customer hits on a streak of good luck at blackjack, craps or roulette, the cooler will insinuate himself into the game. His job is to disrupt the flow, break the concentration, change the luck. The cooler may spill a drink, talk too loudly or act drunk. He'll do whatever he can to make the hot streak go cold. Casino owners, of course, never own up to the fact they employ coolers.

In reel life, Macy's Bernie Lootz is so powerful at bad luck he needs merely to stroll by a table or row of slot machines and everyone (except the house) immediately starts losing. He's plain bad luck. He considers himself a complete loser and is a fairly unhappy soul.

While Macy is the title character, the film relies on a triumvirate to play out its winning hand. Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello make up the other points of the triumvirate and Kramer's story and direction gives each of the three equal weight.

Baldwin plays Shelly Kaplow, the manager of a casino called the Shangri-La. Shelly and the Shangri-La are strictly old-school Vegas. Shelly, in an eloquent monologue, compares the city to a woman. He is completely disgusted with the owners of the Shangri-La, who are trying to move in new blood to replace him. He sees Vegas turning into a "Disneyland for mooks" and wants no part of it. The Shangri-La is still the kind of place where, if you have an outstanding debt, Shelly and his boys will break your kneecaps.

That's what happened to Bernie years back. After the incident, Shelly paid for Bernie's patch-up operation and hired him to be his "walking piece of Kryptonite," the world's best cooler.

The third point of the triangle is a waitress at the Shangri-La named Natalie (Maria Bello). Bernie rescues her from an uncomfortable situation one evening and they later go for coffee. Very uncharacteristic for Bernie, they also end up in the sack together. Their first time doesn't quite work for both parties involved. Natalie's line "Don't worry about it. I've had worse" is one of the defining moments in the film.

Natalie sees Bernie as a wounded soul and genuinely gains a great deal of affection for him. Bernie, long distanced from any emotional or sexual connection, is head-over-heels.

The viewer wonders if something is not quite right. Bernie has recently given Shelly his notice and plans to quit the casino business and move on. The chance encounter between Bernie and Natalie seems just a little too convenient.

But the affair blossoms, and as it does, something strange happens to Bernie. He finds he's no longer an unavoidable piece of bad luck. His powers as a cooler are themselves cooling off.

While turning one's world around because of being in love would seem to be a positive thing, for someone in Bernie's line of work and with a boss like Shelly it could be disastrous.

Complicating matters even further is the arrival of Bernie's low-life son, Mikey, and the boy's pregnant girlfriend. Mikey hits his dad up for money, but the sob story isn't real. Mikey and his girl just want the money for gambling and drugs. Mikey soon finds himself in a very bad position with the Shangri-La and Shelly, who is still running the place like the old days and in a fairly bad mood about the prospective takeover.

Things get intense, and first-time director Kramer, along with cinematographer Jim Whitaker, keeps the action edgy. There have been a lot of great films about Vegas and the lifestyle of gamblers. The characters of Shelly, Bernie and Natalie could easily have been background players in movies like "Leaving Las Vegas," "Casino" or the original "Oceans Eleven."

I have an unabashed affinity for films like "The Cooler," which are low on budget but high on storytelling and have a director with a passion for the material.

The film was released in Los Angeles and New York at the end of December, making it eligible for the next Oscar awards. Smart money has been saying Alec Baldwin is a lock for best supporting actor. As for William H. Macy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should give him a lifetime achievement award for his ability to portray the troubled "everyman."

Without a doubt "The Cooler" is one of the best films of (technically speaking) 2003.