Rent Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

Depressing - Leaving Las Vegas review by CP Customer

A depressing, yet fascinating, tale of 2 misfits who meet up in Las Vegas and offer some comfort and solace to each other, even if it is only for a short while. Nic Cage and Elisabeth Shue are superb in their roles. Painful to watch, but compelling.

Brilliant acting - Leaving Las Vegas review by CW

Leaving Las Vegas provided Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue with the best roles of their careers. The acting is astonishingly good. Cage won best actor for his role but unfortunately though Shue was nominated for an Oscar, she did not win. This is a sad, depressing, heartbreaking tale while at the same time a strange and lovely story of two people who fall in love, clinging to each other for friendship and security. Cage as Ben is doomed having moved to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. The opening shows him merrily pushing a shopping cart laden with bottles through a liquor store as he dances to music in his head. There are scenes when Ben and Sera (Shue) look at each other with total acceptance and mad love. It is a difficult movie to watch but well worth it. This is not a glamorous happy ending. It is a tragedy that has the power of an opera.

Sweet Sickness - Leaving Las Vegas review by Steve

Melancholy romance set against the US moral inferno. The neo-noir atmospherics create a profound impression of urban desolation, though it's the last chance affair between a suicidal alcoholic (Nicolas Cage) and a Las Vegas hooker (Elisabeth Shue) which captured the public imagination.

Cage won the Oscar and Shue was nominated and they give their doomed love story some real heartbreak. And yet... it's the despair of a society which has lost its way which lingers. Where every human need is transactional, where the deal is paramount and the dollar is the ultimate good.

Desire is a component to be packaged and sold back to us at a premium rate plus tips. Only the incurable drunk and the tough-yet-vulnerable sex worker have any humanity worth a damn in the rising tide of sleaze, in the pitiful, nocturnal city. This feels like an end-of-the-world picture.

And it's an overwhelmingly gloomy experience. Mike Figgis wrote the script and directs with rare wisdom on a minuscule budget. He also composed the jazzy soundtrack, and plays trumpet! Sting sings a few standards for maximum nostalgia. It's about addiction but better on the ambient sadness.