Customer Reviews

Leaving Las Vegas [PAL/REGION 2 & 4 DVD. Import-Australia]

5 star:		(104)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

"Leaving Las Vegas" is a dark and tragic film that shows you how low you can fall and just how bad things can get. It portrays a dead-on picture of alcoholism and what exactly one goes through when they've hit rock bottom. As tragic as it is, this is a very beautiful and well-done film that keeps your attention to the bitter end.

Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) is an alcoholic who has nothing left to live for but the very booze that seems to be the only happiness he can find. His friends want nothing to do with him and women are disgusted by him. After being let go from his job, Ben burns all of his possessions and moves to Las Vegas, where his only plan is to drink himself to death. In a short amount of time he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a lonely hooker who has been through it all. An unexpected bond is formed between the two and love falls upon them that can only end in tragedy.

Boy, was this a hard movie to watch, but it was so well-done and executed. You are able to sympathize with both Ben and Sera, despite the paths they have chosen. Nicholas Cage was amazing and brilliant. No wonder why he won an Academy Award for his performance. You really buy into the fact that he is this sad character who wants nothing more but to destroy himself by the only thing that can bring him some sense of false happiness. Shue is also terrific in her role and should be applauded as well. The two are explosive as a team and can really bring the house down.

The DVD is fair; nothing too special. You can have your choice of either watching the movie in widescreen or full screen. The picture for the most part looks good; not the best, but good. The main special feature this DVD offers is a trailer for the film and a bonus secret page. It would be nice if they decided to re-release this in a more superior version.

"Leaving Las Vegas" is drama at its best. It's heartbreaking, but at the same time is satisfying. It's emotionally charged from start to finish. The writing is poetic, the acting is electric, and the directing is fantastic. Be warned, this is not a "feel-good" movie. It's a portrait of harsh reality and it doesn't go easy on you for a second. If you want a powerhouse drama that will keep you emotionally involved, this is the one for you. A terrific and amazing film on every front.

Watching `Leaving Las Vegas' can be an experience that takes a gloomy sadness to the interiors of your existence and keeps you immersed in it. As human beings, we consistently put the highest premium on our being alive. Experiencing the intensity of a despondent Nicolas Cage committed to taking his life by drinking himself to death, can trigger off a question as to what can prepare someone for such an act of self-destruction. Intriguingly enough we get no clear answers though there is a clear hint as to it might have been a profound sense of loss or failure.

Singular focus on the moribund obsessions of Cage would be gross injustice to the incredibly touching love and empathy that he shares with the lead female protagonist - Elisabeth Shue - who plays a hooker's role with levels of dexterity rarely attained. There is a very deep understanding and mutual acceptance between the two lead characters that is in many ways the true highlight of this movie. Interestingly, we see no reasons for this to exist but such is the articulacy of characterization that not even for a second does one find this profound relationship unrealistic.

'Leaving Las Vegas' is an iconoclastic love story whose control over the audience is fascinating. Such is the brilliance of the performances that you feel a lump in your heart by the end of the movie - and this lump transcends into the depths of your being - to stay there and to remind you that unconditional love exists and so does the capability to invite your own death to walk up to you - gradually and consistently. 'Leaving Las Vegas' is a movie that would haunt you for its portrayal of love intertwined with morbid realities of life.

This film is not for most people; it's very morose and gruesome at times, and it won't be entertaining and satisfying in the same way most mainstream movies are. It does however provide a very shocking and revealing look at the lives of a hopeless drunkard and a lonely prostitute.

Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue are superb portraying their characters and their skill is the driving force of the film. That isn't to say, however, that the directing, music, and screenplay weren't excellent as well.

One particularly important aspect of the film is the relationship that forms between Cage and Shue. Some reviewers describe it as sincere love, however, I don't agree. Both Cage and Shue are desolate and vulnerable. The natural thing for both of them to do when they meet is to seek refuge in each other. Shue might love Cage, but it's more out of desparation for company than what she sees in him. Cage's interest in Shue is somewhat more confusing. Before his introduction to Shue, I got the impression that he was completely detatched from anything earthly. The relationship he maintains with Shue suggests otherwise though. I'm not really sure, yet, what to make of Cage.

I never really knew what alcohol could do to a man until seeing this movie. Sure, a random drunk on the street is a common sight, but most people, who don't have a friend or family member with the problem, don't realize the extreme extent to which the obsession can develop. I'd recommend this film to anyone older than 17.

This horrifyingly tragic tale about a man who has mysteriously lost his family and his life's work and who resorts to alcoholism and finds love with a kindhearted prostitute as a result, is both powerful and heart wrenching. It's a story about how we must accept each other, even in times of defeat, and still love ourselves at the same time. Leaving Las Vegas might not be for all tastes with its highly artistic making and its disturbingly hard-to-watch scenes, yet is nonetheless insightful, well done, and ultimately well performed.

The rogue protagonist of this film is a man named Ben (Nicolas Cage), who is a former Hollywood executive and a widowed man who is left hopeless as a result of his family leaving him. Ben decides to relocate to Las Vegas where he plans to drink himself to death. When Ben arrives at Las Vegas, he meets an intelligent yet emotionally-wounded woman named Sera (Elisabeth Shue) who makes her living by "selling her body" on a nightly basis. Even though Ben and Sera are two individuals who are destroying themselves, they are willing to accept each other for who they are, and what results is a poignant and heartbreaking movie that's really like no other.

What's very unusual about this movie is that director Mike Figgis (who adapted the screenplay from John O'Brien's novel) has achieved what some might call impossible, in that he has told a moving love story in the tawdry setting of Las Vegas. This sort of accomplishment makes Figgis, by far, an especially auspicious director. Another unique aspect to the film is that Figgis has the setting of Las Vegas, with its lights and flash-trash, allegorically help tell the story. Figgis also provides the film with a sort of smokiness and surreal feel that lend themselves to the picture. He also wrote the jazzy, edgy, and affective score, with vocals by Sting. Figgis' approach to the movie is abstract and certainly innovative.

The pervasive intake of alcohol (and the scurrilous behavior that results) by Ben is shocking and emotionally powerful at the same time. In a particularly sentimental scene, Ben tells Sera that she must understand that he cannot be told to stop drinking. Sera and the audience somehow accept this at first, but later on wish that they had never agreed with this statement.

The truly meritorious aspect of Leaving Las Vegas is the bravura performances of the two leads. Both Cage and Shue give their characters great depth and a shining aura of greatness. Cage won a well-deserved Academy award for his audacious performance, and Shue's performance is equally Oscar worthy and commendable.

My sole criticism for this film is that it's not for all tastes. Leaving Las Vegas is so highly artistic and at times hard to watch that it might not be well liked by the mainstream audience or by those who are easily offended. The film has a darkness and unpleasantness that would turn off the more delicate viewers, and the film has a surreal manner of storytelling that would not please the majority of those who watch movies.

Leaving Las Vegas can be called wonderful even though it's certainly morbid stuff. It's wonderful due to its superb directing, fresh style, galvanizing performances, and its overall message. This film will be admired by some and not all, but those who will admire it will embrace it and not regret seeing it.

This is a good film but the quality falls way short of Blu-ray capabilities and many SD DVD releases - in a word "dire". Releasing films with such poor picture quality could make Blu-ray, already off to a poor start a non-starter. We need some sort of vetting that stops such poor quality films/transfers being released on Blu-ray before we can take the Blu-ray format to mean better picture quality and not just higher cost than standard DVD.

Not many films I've seen were able to depict the reality of compulsive drunks and hookers. It confirms what I have always thought: no matter what, the bottom line is that a human being is essentially love, and life revolves around it. Its presence or its absence dictates pragmatic success or self destruction.

Ben's mind boggling drinking may seem too excessive, a expressway to death, but there is so much you can fit into a movie. The core here, in my opinion, resides in the fact that we can - voluntarily, control whether we survive drinking or not. Cage's interpretation is real, yet giving him an Oscar for that remains questionable.

Sera's performance as a hooker brought - once again, yet with an astonishing evidence - that prostitution may not be reserved to poor girls and/or uncultured souls. Sue's acting is a masterpiece of profound conflict between business at any cost (the executive at the bar counter and the rape from the football players)and the real, love thirsty and sensitive Sera.

He is not a hopeless drunk, She is not a cold blooded hooker. None of them are victims. But both are in desperation to find a way to justify why they are alive. The drunk and the Hooker are not alive, they simply exist!

And finding themselves provided means to stop and come back, love as the basis of such painful, yet possibe and desirable recover.

I cannot judge why the movie ended with her acceptance of his way of being, as I respect the author's and the director's choice. But as a message (and all real movies should convey one), it would be healing to see, even without an happy-end, that those disturbed beings could return to Life through Love.

Elisabeth Sue deserved an Oscar for her amazing, beautiful, sensible and shattering interpretation.

For the rest, music supported the movie being a breath holding experience from the beginning to the end. Grade AA++

I found this film very hard to watch. Not because it is a bad film but because of the material with which it deals and the strength of the portrayal of that material.

Nicolas Cage plays Ben, a man who is on the way down and who knows it. He loses his family and his job and the only thing that he has left is drinking. Finally, destroying everything that remains of his old life, he takes his severance pay and sets off for Las Vegas with the simple intention of drinking himself to death.

There he has a chance encounter with prostitute Sera (Elisabeth Shue) and they are drawn together. All that Ben needs is a person who will not reject him because he is a drunk and who will not try to get him off the bottle. Sera needs Ben too. She needs a man who wants her for more than just sex or the money that it makes.

Oddly, for a relationship involving a prostitute, sex hardly enters into things. The reason is simple. Alcohol is deadening Ben to the extent that he is not sexually interested in Sera. This is the one thing that strains their relationship. Ben never asks Sera to stop working but he makes sure that she knows that he does not like it. Sera cannot understand how Ben can want to be with her but not want her sexually.

Finally, Sera realises something about Ben. When he told her that he intended to drink hiumself to death, he was being more serious than with anything else. She asks him to seek help. This precipitates a string of events that breaks them up but they are reunited for a tragic finale in which both finally get what they wanted.

Cage puts in a truely outstanding performance as Ben. Watching him gave me the same feelings that I have had when watching a friend get too drunk, too often. He really is totally convincing. Shue is good but her performance is overshadowed by Cage.

The final reason that the film is so compelling is the source material. The film is based on a book by John O'Brien who killed himself as filming began. Director, Mike Figgis finished the film as a tribute and O'Brien's father is reported to have described the story as his son's suicide note.

Mike Figgis brought this touching ode to the night to the screen, imbuing it with the transient and tragic nature of those seduced and then swallowed up by it. The director of Stormy Monday perfectly captures the sad yet often poetic beauty found in the shared loneliness of the night two souls in despair can find.

On the surface it is a simple story of a man drinking himself to death and a prostitute on the streets of Las Vegas. But it is really a story of love and loss with a foreign film atmosphere and quality, giving it that rare depth where the film becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Nicholas Cage gives a haunting performance as Ben Sanderson, a man who has lost everything and come to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. On his way down he meets a prostitute named Sera and in their spiraling despair they discover love. One of the most poignant moments in the film comes when Cage is on the streets of Las Vegas seeking human contact and can't remember whether he lost everything because of his drinking or started drinking because he lost everything. Cage's performance rings absolutely true and deservedly won him the Oscar. He shows with great tenderness the sad realism of being an alcoholic.

Matching Cage scene for scene is Elizabeth Shue in a brilliantly realized role that should have won an Oscar. As this lonely and isolated working girl begins to care about Ben she discovers she is not dead inside, like some, and can still love. But when Ben finally pushes her away in order to save her, she realizes that if she lets him, she may very well lose this power to love and her connection to being human. Going back, however, may be more than her heart can bare.

Figgis has made a mesmerizing film of almost overwhelming sadness. This is not a `feel good' movie by any stretch of the imagination. There is both truth and poetry here though for those who know this life. Ben and Sera are like two roses; one withering at the onset of its last winter and the other finding an unexpected bud on a long dormant vine.

An incredible sountrack with artist like Michael MacDonald and Sting is used to set the tone for this wonderful but difficult to watch film. Anyone who has ever been devastated by a loss and known a Sera or a Ben, or a combination of both in one, will be moved by this heartbreaking journey into loneliness and despair. Though brilliant, its appeal may be limited and it is easy to understand why some are not as enthusiastic about it.

But for those who have ever seen or experienced a glimmer of this side of life and been shown the comforting tenderness of love on the way down, the final moments of this film will be almost painful to watch and deeply affecting. Figgis has made a masterpiece for all those who have walked away before the night swallowed them up completely and they were lost forever.

"Leaving Las Vegas", starring Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, is a great hardcore dram-packed film released in 1995. It received four Oscar nominations, including Best Director (Mike Figgis). This film follows the lives of Ben and Sera. Ben's wife and son left him because of his severe drinking habit. He recently was fired from his job, and now he relocates to Las Vegas to "drink himself to death". Meanwhile, he meets Sera, a prostitute equally emotionally dying. The moment they begin dating, their relationship moves faster than the average couple. Their chemistry and mutual acceptance proves that they are destined for each other.

Its plot contains heavy depth that keeps the emotional stance intact. The unique storyline of two people on the verge of death who fall in love makes this film like no other. This love affair combines passion and darkness that few have made fit together so well. As the characters fall deeper into their suicidal spiral, the drama continually builds leading to a powerful climax. The characters' painful pasts gives the film events a more powerful theme. Such themes offer a more new meaning to Las Vegas.

Nicolas Cage (Ben) and Elisabeth Shue (Sera) are the top performers of this film. Neither actor had performed in a dark-themed film before. However, their chemistry between one another and the film proves great. This would propel their careers to greater levels. Cage, in his Oscar-winning performance, gives new meaning to the term alcoholic. His character's witty, charming, and aggressive personality combine well. His performance proved highly difficult considering Ben was drunk through 99% of the film. Shue's powerful Oscar-nominated performance (which she should have won) is the breakthrough performance of the year and of her career. Sera's emotional stance offers new depth territory to the film. Her deep emotional pain, loneliness, and hardships express themselves in great levels. Shue mastered acting out many difficult issues and events (rape, assault, harassment, endangerment, and more), which makes this much more amazing.

"Leaving Las Vegas" is a great film for any hardcore drama fan. This will surely keep audiences interested for a long time. Those interested in this film must watch it a few times to fully understand the deep crutial details.

i could go on and on but i wont, the facts are a) this is probably the most dramatic movie ever made and b) nic cage is the best actor on the planet. holy smokes was he amazing in this and elisabeth shue is perfect by all standards. i also dig "the third man" tributes in there - good job all around tonite i decided this is my favorite movie....which might last a week but it will remain top five forever. I know its a little late but seriously...congrats nic cage you kick ass.