The Winner

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The Winner Review

Alex Cox, the director, has one of the great 80s cult films to his credit--Repo Man--and while The Winner does not have the same resonance, it is still a solid piece of work. The strong cast--Rebecca deMornay, Michael Madsen, Billy Bob Thornton, Frank Whaley, Vincent D'Onofrio, Delroy Lindo, and Richard Edson--does an excellent job of playing out their standard neo-noir roles. Yes, there is some measure of formula-typing here, but it is, after all, neo-noir. DeMornay's femme fatale is not a demon (like Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction), but more a nasty vixen who undergoes a change of heart, but, unfortunately, too late. Frank Whaley is terrific as a small-time con man whose motor mouth oozes false schmaltz. Billy Bob Thornton in an uncharacteristic role, sporting a goofy toupee and serving as a henchman for Delroy Lindo's suave Kingman, is a bit on the stiff side, but given his hinted-at affliction, maybe that's understandable. Michael Madsen has one of his many roles as a brute and does the role justice.And Vincent D'Onofrio is effective as well in the title role. One of the flaws of the film is that it shuttles back and forth between characters so frequently that aside from DeMornay's and Whaley's roles, no one character is developed enough to establish a strong identity. But the plot is strong and occasionally sparkles with some of the director's characteristic flashes of archetypal-metaphoric wit. A great example is the winking out of all the lights at the end of the film. Cox himself appears briefly as a wacky French choreographer named Gaston, responsible for the dancers's routines at a chintzy Vegas place called, appropriately, the Par-A-Dise.It's at this place that the title character finds himself most of the time. He's a gambler who never loses--so everybody's after his money. The femme fatale wants him for it. His ex-con brother (Madsen), carrying a mysterious filled-in sleeping bag, needs the winner's money to keep getting by, the way he has been after finally leaving the slammer. The trio of lowlife crooks (Whaley, Edson in one of his well-done 'dopey' roles, and another guy) want the money he creates out of nothing, and Kingman wants to exploit him for it. But the winner is a guy who just does what he does, after almost committing suicide. The winner's mix of innocence and impulsiveness is, for all the brief flashes of this mix that do come through, handled well by D'Onofrio, but as mentioned above, the character is not developed enough for the viewer to feel for him.It's the plotting, a lot of the snappy dialogue (thanks to writer Wendy Riss) and the director's witty style that make this work as well as it does. Not a great film, but enjoyable and fun. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | PermalinkComment�Comment

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