I.if you ever thought there was something bohemian or glamorous or Bukowskian about drinking in a Las Vegas bar… then this movie makes you right. It’s a documentary fiction about a seedy place called The Roaring 20s, in Las Vegas, that is about to close for good. (The movies were actually shot at a place called The Roaring 20s in New Orleans, which is still open for business, but there may be something about the desert and the blackness in a bar that makes it each closing time feels like the last closing time ever.) The filmmakers got the barflies present, with one professional actor in the mix, making up over a long day. into the night and the next day, making a real drink and apparently releasing real acid. This is not as surprising as they would expect; it only leads to nearby fighting.
The result is sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes humorous. One pessimistic person states: “I am proud to just be an alcoholic after a failure.” He also mentions something from his background: “I took over one morning and the coin fell out of manufacture.” At the same time, the brutal and brutal arguments lead to nonsense, to the soundtracks of Michael Jackson, Patsy Cline and The Gambler (twice) by Kenny Rogers. A drunken woman named Pam sits at the awesome bar lifting her top and proudly announcing: “Look! Sixty year old Titties! ” The man next to her bravely states that they are “taller than some men’s nut” – and she replies: “I once parted with a man because his walnut hung lower than the dick aige. If only TS Eliot could have told his “sweet ladies” in The Waste Land that there was nothing like that.
This is an interesting piece of Americana that reminded me of making a film in the 70s, as John Huston’s Fat City. I expected young Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges to apply for some whiskey.
• Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is released on Curzon Home Theater on December 24, then in cinemas on January 1st.