Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets

I was initially kinda angry when I found out this wasn't a real documentary. I had this weird emotional dump. It's hard to describe but I felt cheated in a way.

Thankfully though it also works as a regular narrative film, so I've gotten past them feelings and tried judging it based on that. A fictional film with mostly non-actors. And by them standards, it's still very very good. One of the best of the year actually. Which kinda begs the question, why did they even feel the need to try to sell it as a doc in the first place?

I found this film very believable and as a former bartender I know many people who could have been characters in a place like this. The film builds slowly in mosaic fashion and creates a multi-dimensional depiction of a so called "third place" that has real value in our increasingly corporate homogenized world. I really liked the film.

How do I even begin to write this review? Just wanted to chime in and say this off beat film is about a bar in Las Vegas closing down. The whole film focusses on patrons to the bars - alcoholics, middle aged people, unhappy people, people complaining about their lives, what could have been - all well behaved despite their fragile undercurrent. Loved, loved it.

From all the reviews I'm reading... it's sounds like a movie version of an episode he did to get smoking back into bars.

Enter a Las Vegas dive bar on its final night before closing. The inhabitants are as shabby and unremarkable as you might expect, at first glimpse at least. When sticking around to observe them for an entire night, you begin to understand the humanity of these so-called societal rejects and failures. Sure, they might be unshowered, wreaking of booze and cigarettes, and unable to come up with a single answer to Jeopardy! but they are people who crave and deserve a sense of belonging just as much as any 9 to 5 office employee. There's a heart to this story that offers a dash of hope. Then the bar closes and everyone moves on.