Gambling on a road to nowhere

SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Saint John of Las Vegas" has got everything I love about an independent quirky road movie. It's got Steve Buscemi, which is a major plus, naked cowboys, Sarah Silverman in happy mode, handicapped strippers, odd encounters and locations (having lived outside Albuquerque, NM, I do know how odd most of that Land of Manana can be), small-time gambling, and a thousand bucks to spare on lottery tickets. What it does not have is resonance or enough of a point - the film eventually meanders and sputters out to a far too tidy finish. The journey in getting there is kinda fun though.

Buscemi plays John, a former Las Vegas gambler who works at an auto insurance company. He is hoping for a promotion from his boss, Mr. Townshend (Peter Dinklage), whose desk is surrounded by four ostentatious Greek pillars. John's latest job is to go on the road to Sin City, the place that got him into past troubles, with Virgil (Romany Malko), the top insurance fraud specialist. Together they investigate an auto accident claim by a stripper whose car was struck by another driver in the middle of the desert. Fraud is suspected.

Virgil doesn't make John's life easy. They sleep in the car instead of going to a motel. When they meet a carnival human torch (played by John Cho in one of the oddest characters I've ever seen in a movie) who is also a tow truck driver, John has to ask the questions, not Virgil. When John tries to win a Happy Face doll at the circus (the smiley face is a recurring symbol) for his girlfriend-to-be (Sarah Silverman), he can't throw worth a dime but Virgil can. And then Virgil takes John to a sudden moment of unexpectedness that you won't see coming (at least I didn't).

"Saint John of Las Vegas" is often hysterically written and directed by Hue Rhodes - he has done a capable job of maintaining an air of Coens Brothers mentality but without the often cartoonish, loud rush that inflates some of the Coens work to unwatchable extremes (I am talking to you, "Raising Arizona"). This film has sass but it is also restrained so as to not hit you over the head with its offbeat gestures and characters (the story is allegedly based on Alighieri's "Divine Comedy"). You keep wondering where John's gambling inclinations will take him. When we finally get to the ending of this 85-minute odyssey, I felt a little too underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong - the ending is an appropriate finish technically. I just felt distanced from it, wishing the film had more to say and engaged us more with Buscemi's John and Malko's enigmatic Virgil. The ride is fun and breezy but it needed more of a finishing touch.