'Atlantic City' draws its two main characters so well, and they are so well acted by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, that it is only at the end that we feel let down for caring about two people who frankly don't deserve it. There are points in this finely directed and well-written film where we think something wonderful (or tragic) will happen to them, that they've gotten a lucky break which will enable them to break free from their shallow dreams (or perhaps go down in flames), but in the end, they go right on living like they did before, albeit with a little more money. I daresay everyone on the planet has known someone like Sarandon's Sally, a young woman struggling to make it who's already been through a bad marriage and hard times and is trying to start over. She's pretty but not gorgeous, energetic; she's also foolish, a little crazy, and emotionally unstable to a degree. Sally is training to be a casino dealer, a career she almost blindly hopes will solve all her problems and maybe even allow her to live in France. She approaches the training with all the fervor of someone who's been talked into a pyramid scheme. But just below the almost manic surface, one can tell she is bound to burn out on the idea sooner or later. She never gets the chance though. Burt Lancaster is Lou Pascal, a former mobster (so he says) who hasn't been outside of Atlantic City in twenty-seven years, even though there is nothing for him there anymore, if in fact there ever really was. He is reduced to taking fifty-cent bets from people, mostly tenement dwellers in the poor black community. His companion of sorts is Grace, a woman about his age who, like him, lives in a past that frankly doesn't sound like it's much worth reliving. He waits on her, gets her groceries and does other errands for no particularly good reason other than he's been doing it so long, it's become a habit. They argue a lot but seem to feel genuine affection for each other. Atlantic City itself is shown in the early days of the casino boom, where there are two kinds of people: those like Sally who are going to work in the casinos, and those like Lou and Grace who are being pushed aside to make room for the glitzy gambling dens. The old run-down hotels are being torn down. Lou lives in a shabby room in one of them, as does Sally next door, though they don't know each at first. Lou finds himself unexpectedly making big money dealing cocaine (inadvertently courtesy of Sally's ex-husband) and begins playing the high-roller he always wanted to be, and pretends that he once was. But he really does have a heart, and he tries to help and 'protect' Sally. As a quirky slice-of-life, 'Atlantic City' hits almost all the right notes. But as a satisfying drama/character study, it leaves us hanging with an 'is that all there is?' kind of feeling. The thing about the ending isn't that it's such a huge downer, but that it is neither here nor there. We half-expect Lou to die trying to help Sally, or Sally to come to the realization she's been used and that learning French really isn't the answer. Instead, Sally steals most of the drug money from Lou and takes off down the road, none the wiser as far as can be told. And Lou goes back to Grace; the last shot is of them walking down the boardwalk, apparently content to be back where they started. It's more depressing than a genuinely depressing ending.
Review of Atlantic City
