São João de Las Vegas

I knew nothing about this movie, but ended up catching it on a movie channel recently. I thoroughly enjoyed it and watched parts over again. It lacked a lot of action and it didn't really have many punchlines, but I found this lack of predictability to be one of the most endearing parts about the movie. While the movie is not at all predictable and often pretty absurd, it does not feel as if the absurdity relies on weird twists or surprises. While the situations feel bizarre, the situations and characters are much closer to reality than most everything else Hollywood puts out. I thought the acting was great, the characters bizarre, and the situations hilarious. Needless to say I found it very compelling and funny, and i did not need any Dante references to appreciate it.

John (Steve Buscemi), a recovering gambler, is sent back to Las Vegas by his employer to research insurance fraud. Along the way he must face junkyard thugs, a crippled stripper and try to maintain a relationship with his less-than-stable girlfriend (Sarah Silverman).

This story is somehow based on the writings of Dante Aligheri. I don't see it. I freely admit by knowledge of "Inferno" and "Paradiso" is not on the level it could be, but this had to be a very loose interpretation to say the least. However, regardless of the source material, the finished product is a gem that sadly did not get the full attention it deserved. This should have been a major theatrical release and success rather than a film festival darling.

Sure, it has that "independent" feel to it, like a darker "Garden State"... but if people like Wes Anderson can make it big off of the indie film feeling, why not this film? Steve Buscemi has a huge cult following, as does Sarah Silverman. Buscemi was what attracted me to this film -- he has never failed to disappoint me in any of his roles from "Big Lebowski" to "Ghost World" to "Reservoir Dogs". One of the biggest flaws another indie film, "Floundering", made was using Buscemi too little.

The directing is tight, the story is tight... the word "tight" is really the way to describe this film. The pace keeps steady, with never a dull moment despite not really being anything close to an action film. John is a perfect everyman inserted into odd situations (did I mention the nudists?) so we can both sympathize with him, yet enjoy that he has quirks we wouldn't, and weaknesses we do not. It is as though watching our best friend on an adventure.

If you missed this one on the festival circuit (and let's be frank, most of us do not have the luxury of attending them), please do yourself a favor and rent this film, or perhaps even purchase it. I think it's the kind of film that will have a strong word-of-mouth fan base, and it would be in your best interest to discover it before all your friends have first. So many films slip under the radar... don't let "Saint John of Las Vegas" be one of them.

This movie is making the festival rounds right now, but unlike a lot of over-hyped festival fodder,it is genuinely a good movie, which I suspect will soon become more widely available. It reminded me somewhat of the Coen brother's film "O Brother Where Art Thou?"--not in that it is in any way unoriginal--but it has a similarly surreal, absurdist sense of humor, and like the Coen brother's film, it is a modern adaptation of a classic work of literature, in this case "Dante's Inferno".

The great Steve Buscemi plays "John Alegheri" (as in Dante Alegheri), a reformed compulsive gambler with a comfortable, if mundane, life living in a tract home and working for an insurance agency. But after he asks his diminutive boss (Peter Dinklage) for a raise, he suddenly finds himself promoted to fraud and, along with a partner named "Virgil" (Romany Malco), is sent on a fraud investigation, which proves to be a metaphoric descent into hell--and in particular, his own personal version of hell since the investigation takes place in and around Las Vegas, a city where he had some unpleasant personal history.

He and "Virgil's" various bizarre encounters on their journey include a sexy stripper in a wheelchair (Emamanuelle Chriqui) still trying to perform lap dances, a group of heavily armed right-wing survivalists (including "O Brother's" Tim Blake Nelson) who also happen to be nudists, and in the most surreal scene, a tow-truck driver who has second job as a circus performer and as the result of a bizarre accident is stuck in a lawn chair in a flame-retardant suit that periodically catches on fire (and, hilariously, what he really wants is a cigarette). There's a some nice twists at the end and the character reaches a final personal epiphany while buying scratch tickets at a convenience store on the outskirts of the dreaded Vegas.

Sarah Silverman plays a co-worker who he starts an affair with after a quickie in the woman's bathroom before he leaves on his journey. It's an unusual role for Silverman, not only in that it exploits her considerable sex appeal, but also in that while it is a comedy role, it is one very different from her usual foul-mouthed stand-up persona. Buscemi, on the other hand, doesn't stretch himself too much, but he doesn't really have to either--he's great at roles like this. The director was actually first-timer and this is particularly impressive as a debut effort (I suppose could complain that the only full-frontal nudity is provided, not by Emanuelle Chriqui or Silverman, but by Tim Blake Nelson!--but I won't). This was entertaining from start to finish. I'd really recommend it.

I was really excited about this movie. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I felt like it couldn't be out on DVD soon enough. As soon as this was out on Redbox I rented it. Lucky for me I had a promo code and got this movie for free. You can just see how low the budget on this movie would have been.

It had it funny moments which were REALLY funny, but they were few and far apart. When you snag actors like Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco, Sarah Silverman and Peter Dinklage, you ensure they have a script to match their caliber. This script was mediocre and the story had no drive or punch. I expected a bit more off the ending, but to me it was an anticlimax.

My suggestion is to rent this movie if you really like the leads. Steve Buscemi and Romany Malco have done a great job acting. If you are expecting a classy suave movie set in Las Vegas, look elsewhere.

IndieVest shot themselves in the foot by putting this dud out as their first release. With their membership based business model of anyone funding a film, Saint John Of Las Vegas killed that platform after opening theatrically without so much as a whimper.

This is an unwatchable, amateurish disaster overloaded with quirk and just limps from one disconnected non sequitur to the next. How this pile of nonsense attracted Spike Lee, Stanley Tucci and Steve Buscemi as producers is more bewildering than the final product. This is an awful picture, that had the support of people that should have known better.