Kramer's 'Cooler' more on the mediocre side

They are the ruthless ones, the ones that revel in their own inspired grotesqueness. They are the ones that actually have a pair and aren't afraid to slap you in the face with them. They are the ones whispered in cryptic corners between your co-workers, the ones about dead babies and airplanes plunging into towers. They are jokes with a wicked sense of humor. \nDark comedy is a carefully crafted witches' brew that, when served correctly, has the ability to strip us down to the nasty little demons we all harbor inside, self-righteous objections coming from the peeled lips of a curdling smile. \nWayne Kramer's feature-film directorial debut, The Cooler, would desperately like to believe it has tapped into these darker powers. It hasn't. Likewise, its illusions of cinematic grandeur extend to elements of film noir and romantic comedy, seemingly being billed as each. Kramer's Cooler ends up being about as noir as a Hardy Boys' mystery, as romantically comedic as seeing a lame dog run over. Twice.\nKramer, who also co-wrote the script with Frank Hannah, gives us the story of Bernie Lootz (Macy), a man so pathetically exuding bad luck, he's been hired by the Shangri La casino to "cool off" tables that are becoming too hot for the House of La to handle. However, when Lootz finds love with cocktail waitress, Natalie (Bello), things heat up, and he becomes anything but a cooler. While this should be a wonderful event, Lootz's lot in life brings about the interesting, if not obvious twist. Armed with a promising enough premise, Kramer gives us glimpses into the lives of characters nearly on par with the desperation seen in Mike Figgis's infinitely better executed Leaving Las Vegas. Sketches, though, are all we're ever given as a stereotyped Macy and Alec Baldwin turn in as expected performances, meaning good, but not great.\nUltimately, it is the film's genre-oriented indecisiveness that leaves Kramer's muddled Cooler in a puddle. Our fine friends at the MPAA, with their rusted, silver scissors, convinced Kramer to leave his cajones on the cutting room floor, lest he be branded with the mark of the beast, NC-17. However, this seemed to be more oriented toward some rather earthy sex scenes between Macy and Bello. There are two distinct moments in the film, one involving a pregnant woman, the other the end (which I won't spoil), where The Cooler is given redemptive opportunities, moments, if followed through with, of nauseating cruelty and deterministic heartbreak that would have proved much more true to the film's characters and tone. In the end, though, The Cooler winds up being about as ballsy as a quivering pre-pubescent boy.