SnoopyStyle It's 1976. Married couple Grace (Helen Mirren) and Charlie Bontempo (Joe Pesci) own the Love Ranch outside of Reno. Irene (Gina Gershon), Mallory (Taryn Manning), Christina (Scout Taylor-Compton), Samantha (Bai Ling), and Alana (Elise Neal) are some of the girls working at the ranch. Charlie is unstable and recruits boxer Armando Bruza to train out on the ranch. His criminal background forces Grace to be Bruza's manager. He controls the local police and faces an effort to criminalize prostitution.This is a mess of stories. It can't be the actors because there are some great ones here. There is probably too many story elements going on. It's in the writing itself. It should concentrate on Mirren and Pesci. It should also get somebody bigger than Sergio Peris-Mencheta. The movie seems to struggle for an identity. It's a waste of great talents.
Don McKenzie Picture a caricature of everything that America, at some level, holds dear, yet despises. Think bling, brash, frantically optimistic and determinedly selfish, and you have the main character typecast by a weathered Joe Pesci. Add to the mix an insecure, yet intelligent and reasonably efficient brothel "madam" who is trapped by economics and an irresponsible, hyperactive, and deliberately delusional husband, and. you have a marriage which must resonate across the globe. The film opens with an ironic and trite hope for the future. Auld Lang Syne is sung at a New Year's Eve party, which Robert Burnes, no stranger to joys of the flesh himself, would possibly have avoided. A stark naked man who has transcended the bounds of good taste, and possibly the law, is driven by the "Madam" (Helen Mirren) into the waiting furniture wielded by her husband, Pesci. The tame police in attendance remove the problem and the party continues. Gradually the dynamics of the Pesci/Mirren relationship are revealed. She actually likes her charges and comforts herself in the knowledge that she is keeping them off the streets. He struts around like a dove with an over-inflated breast, a disgustingly showy car with the vanity plate "LUV SEX", and the nickname of "Mr Good Times". He is a man whose very posture suggests violence, and he has only to threaten to smash the home telephone, her link to the outside world, to ensure that her timid attempt at rebellion turns into a whimpering desire to please him.Pleasing him in the only way he understands is not that easy as she is older than the available nymphets and is very aware that his sudden business calls are not to any office block. The marriage of financial and social convenience could, theoretically, have lasted for years, as many convenient couples will attest, but reality has the unpleasant habit of intruding. A visit to the doctor and plastic convenience is stripped away. The selfishness of her husband is expertly conveyed in his answer to her questioning his love for her. "I *** love you," he says, "I could have never found a woman as loyal as you to take my s***." It says everything that he is totally unaware of the egocentric nature of his declaration of love. Later, when their world is falling apart, and she is experiencing loss, and almost claustrophobic grief,he rails at her that she doesn't know what the **** he went through all night. The tragic moment which announces the end of the film is justified by the quality of the acting. Yes, this could happen, and be a small article on the front page of the morning newspapers, but the film has made its point before the actual violence. It is all about self, the need for self-validation at the expense of others, the need to be desirable, the need to be in control, and even the need to be physically dominant while all these have inevitably and irrevocably been taken away by time. It is a film worthy of a second viewing, if only to enjoy the performance of Pesci (which he has reprized from Goodfellas) and the revelation which is Helen Mirren. That she could go from the ultra- British role as the Queen to this, without a trace of genteel accent, but retain all the pathos of a woman who wants to love her husband and her life, is remarkable. Even the director gives her credit in an in- joke. When her husband dons a hat in keeping with his personality, she asks him who he thinks he is, 'Clint Eastwood'. He replies: "Who do you think you are? The Queen of England?"Eminently watchable, character-driven, and filmed with an understated slickness, this is a film which might, regrettably, not set the box office alight, but which is very worth viewing for so many reasons. True, there are elements that echo events in some well-known films, which my spoiler-conscience prevents me from naming, but it is safe to say that this film strips the sentimentality from such and is the better for it. Taylor Hackford, I look forward to your next.
vitaleralphlouis The focus is in the wrong place. Who cares about the owners. The real stories are what went on between the girls and their customers. There's where the action, emotion and conflicts happen. So many, and so interesting, I wrote a novel about it all.Incidentally, the summary says the ranch was closed by the IRS. True and double-true. The IRS first closed the place in 1995, for a few days; then it was re-opened under IRS management. The IRS likes to deny they actually operated a brothel for profit, but the eyewitnesses and newspaper s say otherwise. The IRS actions were shameless. They actually confiscated the personal effects (clothing, teddy bears, hairbrushes, etc) belonging to the girls who worked there, sold these for chump change. This despite the fact that their claim was against the owners, not the girls. CBS News and other coverage of the closing was laughable. It showed girls saying they were taking up sewing et cetera. In fact, the ading brothel (0.1 miles away) suddenly had an increase of dozens of new girls who simply moved to a new location.When the property was auctioned, a lone bidder got the property for 10 cents on the dollar and he secretly represented the original owners. Re-opened without IRS, they operated for a few years until the second and final IRS closing. Old Joe ought to have paid his taxes.There are still legal brothels in Nevada, but sharp increases in prices has taken away the casual fun atmosphere and customers are few and far between. Love Ranch? Not anymore.
