Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Don't hesitate to get into that film. You will love it because they are all crooked and they all want only one thing, to fool and rob the others. Killing is not really their job, but they enjoy doing it when it is not by accident and they relish the sensations they get when it is by accident. They rob, they deal and not only cards, they kill and assassinate, they cheat and they lie, they show off and they pretend, in one words they are all freaks who are petty criminals of no real nature and ambition. They manage to kill one another for a few thousand dollars, mind you something like thirteen or maybe seventeen thousand. Peanuts, even in 1980 or some time before.That was the time when Atlantic City was finding some new gambling dimension after the downfall, when Las Vegas was investing beyond its own city limits and on the east coast for a while, that is to say close to New York, Philadelphia and some other cities of that size. That could not be the big losers and the big betters and the big winners, but many regular small or average addicted gamblers are more profitable than a few erratic big ones.And when we are speaking of small, we mean small. Some plain white powder cut down by half anyway for twice the price. That powder was stolen and the money that came with it was just as much stolen as the white powder itself, from the first thief, to the second thief, to third thief, and the stolen money goes around just as much as the stolen white powder on a never ending merry-go-round.Among these small young amateurish criminals a couple of two older and by now wasted uncouth people are trying to get everything for themselves and yet they realize their age does not fit that kind of activity and life, and they just collect a few crumbs and they let the only surviving younger one get away with the loot.The only really good interest of the film is the decadent dimension of it. The younger generation was in the process of taking over but the golden boys had not arrived yet, the yuppies as they were going to be called. But all the same, it reeks of decadence with an after taste of poverty, particularly mental poverty. That world took so much time and energy to get wiped away. That was the time when a completely new approach was necessary and the older actor known as Ronald Reagan was going to be elevated to the position of president and that will bring this and this will mean that.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

lasttimeisaw Malle's Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner and hence successfully procured 5 Oscar nominations in 1982, the Big Five (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Script) but lost all of them. The opening voyeuristic gaze towards a young Susan Sarandon's bare breasts is a brazen invitation to a tale of lust and passion, but when it reveals its beholder is a weather-beaten codger, an ethical uneasiness has been motivated on the subject matter as a knee-jerking response, a December-may obsession has its intrinsic inclination to prompt its viewers with polarized acceptance. Luckily, Burt Lancaster is spry and self-aware as the pip-squeak, who sends off a dignity-ballasted aplomb even when he is dictated by his old flame for money, and Malle and screenwriter John Guare mercifully glistens his twilight years with a belated opportunity to spice up his low-end life, and the ending is a tad out of left field but also understandable with its benevolent gesture to a sympathetic soul. This is authentically Ms. Sarandon's big breakthrough role, a simple girl always on-the-make and striving for a better life (getting married with a sad sack to get out of a provincial town, taking croupier class to secure a job in the casino), not that Oscar-worthy in my opinion, but she is a natural performer to oscillates between spitfire honesty and self-serving shrewdness; by contrast, Lancaster's Oscar-nomination is more deserving, merely a cipher would be left unnoticed at the shady corner of casino shindig, finally pays his dues to save a lady and revitalize his own life, though Sarandon's sexual allure is the precondition, Malle and Guare carefully skirt around the prickly issue by injecting a more acceptable closure of their relationship. Kate Reid, as garish as she is in the role of an aging silk-stocking widow, embellishes the film with her own way of levity (the ineffable expression when Lancaster cops a feel in her bed) while other supporting cast is purely bells and whistles. I cannot say this is Malle's apotheosis, my favorite among his oeuvre (so far) is still THE FIRE WITHIN (1963, 9/10), nevertheless Atlantic CITY never loses its zest in spinning a yarn for the aged generation, and it is also a sensible elegy to those who dies without fulfilling their dreams, it is never too late to shoot a few mobsters!

Lee Eisenberg Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" is as much a look at the changes that the east coast's gambling mecca was undergoing as it is a story of an aging gangster and a waitress. The elderly Lou (Burt Lancaster) talks about how the city used to be. Of course, part of what the movie shows is that even the renovation can't truly hide the gritty side of things, as the thugs are looking for the cocaine. The most famous scene is Sally's (Susan Sarandon) rubbing the lemon juice on herself to get the fish smell off, but the demolition of the old buildings, the crime bosses, and the whole end sequence tell plenty of stories as well. A very good movie.PS: Watch for an appearance by Wallace Shawn as a waiter. Malle soon afterwards cast him in "My Dinner with Andre".

MartinHafer "Atlantic City" has a lot of good acting but I sure found it to be a thoroughly unpleasant film. You've got an aging petty crook (Burt Lancaster), a drug dealing user, a doormat of a woman (Susan Sarandon), her bizarre and spacey sister and a nasty old lady with an equally nasty dog--all of which are hard to care in the least about and one who is just thoroughly despicable. Throw them into a thoroughly seedy and run-down environment and you've got a film that I found oppressively awful and hard to watch or care about in any way. Obviously I am not the voice of everyone, as the film received five Oscar nominations--though I really cannot see why. For me to enjoy a film, in most cases I need to have SOMEONE that I can relate to or care about, but in this film there wasn't even one. By the time it was all over, I just felt I needed a bath and never wanted to see this film again.