Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Richard Zelniker
Starring: Billy Gardell, Emily Alabi, Jaina Lee Ortiz,
Christopher Titus, Yolanda Snowball, Mary Scheer
Anchoring the lachrymose intimacy of its chamber drama with crucial
urgency, Richard Zelniker's (writing duties shared with
Steven Barr) impressive indie opens with an indexical statement
grimly informing of how on November the 21st 1980, a fire "ripped" through
the MGM Grand to kill 87 and injure 700. And here's a few more jackpot
fact bombs: 116,523 people
visit Las Vegas
each day, spending
$200 million
in a city where the
house always wins. By way of its punter protagonist, The Vortex is a
study of this phenomena in microcosm. We open on Pete (Billy Gardell, superb in this ruthless character piece), a stand-up at the end of his
turn. From this weathered pro, the set is everything you'd want it to be,
with jokes about guys and their wives told to a crowd of "folks" sat
around ivory clothed tables. You know, real classy (aided by
Asdru Sierra's bassy jazz compositions, the film is suffused with a
delicious nostalgia for a bygone Vegas). Pete signs off with a joke about
gambling, the subsequent laughter cheerfully acknowledging the dangers of
the very activity which most have arrived at the city to enjoy. "Good luck
on those tables, folks," he well wishes.
He'd know, too. Pete’s post-show debrief with his manager fixates on the
running bets he has, and, backstage, accompanied by that ominous, cajoling
score, Pete accesses his answer phone to receive message after message
advising him that he's behind on car insurance, car payments, even his
telephone bill. We're seven hours before the fateful fire but it seems as
if time is already running out for our man...
The psychology of gambling fascinates, a concrete exemplar of magical
thinking: we know the chances of winning are slim, but, motivated by greed
or desperation, we rationalise that we might still beat the odds, that
we're special, that it could be us. After all, as a character in
The Vortex hopes, "every dog has his day." However, Pete is
on the edge and far beyond the glib armchair psychology of above: he
gambles because he is addicted, deep in the Vegas vortex of the title. A
true native, his actions are as snappy as the rimshots which punctuate the
soundtrack, his mien the empty caffeinated urge of the strip.
Filmed in a continuous shot (with the occasional graceful edit), as Pete
plays a particular backroom slot machine Justin Richards'
unflinching camera captures the habitual reflex of gambling: a
coin-slot-press-roll-repeat rhythm, the reiteration of which constructs
the activity as compulsive, near to hypnotic. This next quarter could be
the one to win: Pete is so close! Initially kept company by just a unicorn
charm (another symbol of wishful thinking) and his own voice bargaining
with the machine ("come on girls"), as the night drains and Pete's coins
dwindle, characters weave in and out of the back room and interact with
the increasingly worn stand-up, dispensing late night wisdom or
half-hearted threats concerning ongoing debts. This last aspect is perhaps
the most winning feature of The Vortex - unlike most
representations of Vegas (to wit,
The Last Showgirl, perhaps the worst film I have watched voluntarily this year),
Barr and Zelniker don't reductively imbue their characters with facile
cruelty, and instead a kindness typifies the plot. "If only you were an
asshole, Pete," a mob heavy regrets as he informs our blue suited, coin
grubbed gambler of the damage he is due...
Even though it seems as if Pete is well on his way to Palookaville, there
is nothing cheap about how Zelniker and Barr build their world, which
blends human drama and rich metaphor. Stand-up comedy is itself concurrent
with gambling, a hazard undertaken every night to indefinite outcomes;
risk-taking a character trait which the film suggests, by way of a
schoolboy tale involving quick thinking and patter in a writing class, is
inherent to Pete. It is as if this destiny was in his cards all along.
Each character is likewise a resigned component within the fiscally
inclined ecosystem of Vegas, and there is joy in how Zelniker presents the
archetypes, giving us chewy dialogue such as "he was a shoe guy for Wayne
Newton" and proposing real heart amongst the desperation. Narrative
threads develop via the wife of a friend whom Pete is clearly in love
with, and a cleaner, who, like Pete's unicorn, has charms in the form of
glowing jewels which she places about the slot machines, along with her
own idiosyncratic, perhaps supernatural beliefs. It is this last
character, mercurially played by Emily Alabi, who ups the ante and
facilitates The Vortex's cathartic ending (her Paiute ethnicity invites further subtextual
suggestions, too). Apparently, the intrinsic pleasure which gambling
provides is not necessarily found in the win, but in the thrilling
process: the roll of the dice, the flick of the card, the spin of the
slots. It's a maxim which holds true to The Vortex, where the pot is sweetened by the character development of Pete and
Gardell's endlessly watchable performance. In a final chisel of the film's
Vegas dialect, The Vortex is a lock.
The Vortex is on US VOD now. A
UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
