Love Ranch

I sought this movie out on DVD because it's cinema release was negligible, and anything with Helen Mirren will have some merit. I can only imagine it's almost invisible release was due to the inability of the youthful marketeers to easily identify the box in which to place it, romance, thriller, gangster flic? For those of us who don't care about such trite labels, this is an interesting movie, characters with some depth, it's not really about goodies or baddies, or even right or wrong, it's a story, with some romance, some humour, some sex, some drama, great performances from stalwarts and what should have been a launch pad to international stardom for the young Spaniard...fear not Sergio, we will see you again. I liked it a lot and really recommend it to people who enjoy films about other people rather than machines and/or concepts!

It's 1976. Married couple Grace (Helen Mirren) and Charlie Bontempo (Joe Pesci) own the Love Ranch outside of Reno. Irene (Gina Gershon), Mallory (Taryn Manning), Christina (Scout Taylor-Compton), Samantha (Bai Ling), and Alana (Elise Neal) are some of the girls working at the ranch. Charlie is unstable and recruits boxer Armando Bruza to train out on the ranch. His criminal background forces Grace to be Bruza's manager. He controls the local police and faces an effort to criminalize prostitution.

This is a mess of stories. It can't be the actors because there are some great ones here. There is probably too many story elements going on. It's in the writing itself. It should concentrate on Mirren and Pesci. It should also get somebody bigger than Sergio Peris-Mencheta. The movie seems to struggle for an identity. It's a waste of great talents.

The film has two sags: One very early on in Act I and another late in Act II. In observing a small private audience that was viewing this film, they were all very much engaged in the drama and the action throughout, but they were nearly lost during the two sags. If it were not for those, the film might have attracted a larger audience.

This is not the story of the Mustang Ranch, per se, but rather the story an ambiguous love triangle. (I am thoroughly aware of the Mustang Ranch story, and know Joe Conforte's attorney and best friend, Virgil Bucchanieri, quite well). For example, the film does not use the gimmick of trying to exaggerate the characters that inhabit the brothel, and resists the temptation of trying to replicate the exotica of the Star Wars bar scene.

The real test for a film with this class of story arc is the degree to which we care about the characters mid-way through Act II. Do we care what happens to them in Act III? I and the other audience members all agreed that we did and we shed the expected tears in a tense moment between the dreamer, played by Joe Pesci, and the determined pragmatist, played by Helen Mirren, in the penultimate scene. None of the central or supporting roles were in any way "cardboard" characters.

The production values were quite high and the number of technical errors were minimal (three errors with production sound that really should have been fixed in post plus a couple of continuity errors). Music was very subtle to the point of vanishing at times. There was no attempt at creating a photographic theme: it was all shot color-balanced at neutral without any exaggerated focus-pulls, odd camera framing or moves (but a lot of crane rentals were involved), Pro-mist filters, or too many magic hour shots. That is, the cinematography did not draw attention away from the drama.

The film resolves unambiguously with a shock ending that is well worth waiting for. My final test of entertainment value is: "Are there any scenes in this film that I will remember and repeat in my mind's eye the next day?" I would say that there are such scenes, and I therefore give this picture a 7 out of 10.

The thing that stands out immediately in "Love Ranch" is not the girls, not the 1970s clothes, but the amazing photography. Almost every outdoor scene could be the vista for a postcard. The story itself seems to drag in places, and then suddenly rush to a conclusion, with narration to tidy up the ending. The acting by Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci is terrific as expected, and a small scene with Harve Presnell a pleasant surprise. What is not a surprise is the tale of the Mustang Ranch on which the movie is based. It's tough to overcome the familiarity of a story often aired on cable over the last two decades. - MERK

I guess I cannot agree with the ratings here on IMDb every time.

For example I just saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World rated 8.0 then I seen this movie, Love Ranch only 5.3 -- and while the general public still seems to be in love with the youthful glee based in symbolic fantastic fake X-box gaming TRONlike facade of Scott Pilgrim, they seem to rank an incredible life scenario reality based movie, Love Ranch which is based on a couple in their sixties based on a true story, as it were borderline doggy do. Once again, I guess most movie goers would rather not handle the truth.

I must admit, when I was watching Love Ranch, I was reminded of the movie Papillon, in which they tried to fit a two week read into a two hour movie. I thought I was watching the same kind of movie making from a book being made into 2 hour script reducing it to bits and pieces of condensed scenes. But I guess it was merely a rushed screenplay and not a condensed book when I read about it on IMDb. I suppose part of the problem could have been the spontaneous direction in the seemingly rushed storyline.

Other than that I would give this movie with better editing and direction of script a 9 or 10 rating because the intense reality and grip of the characters like between Helen and the boxer. This was incredibly well done... may sometimes been kind of unbelievable, but in the end their impeccable acting crafts both pulled together a gripping story.

I think without a doubt it could and should have been handled better through production, but the movie itself is infinitely more meaningful than a teeny love triangular crap as in the movie I spoke of earlier.

All in all a great movie that needed to be nurtured a lot more to be made into a fantastic movie.

GT