THE STORY – A down-on-his-luck Las Vegas crooner is offered a shot at the big time.
THE CAST – Vince Vaughn, Al Pacino, Kate Mara, Simon Rex, Shania Twain, Cobie Smulders, Mary Steenburgen, Timothy Simons, Fred Melamed & Sophia Ali
THE TEAM – Nic Pizzolatto (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 103 Minutes
There’s got to be something kind of magical about Vince Vaughn wandering the streets of Vegas. Back in 1996, he appeared with Jon Favreau in “Swingers,” making the pre-millennial catch phrase “you’re so money” ubiquitous. Vaughn plays Trent Walker, a hapless entertainer at the start of their career, finding their way in the world, living on charm and swagger, where even the most egregious of missteps can be overcome thanks to the gift of youthful second chances.
Decades on, a middle-aged Vaughn plays a not dissimilar case of a performer struggling for relevance, but this time, when the odds of a second chance are as slim as catching a zero on a roulette wheel. Vince plays Easy, the man with the ironic name, given the difficulties of thriving in the neon-soaked world of Vegas. He’s a lounge singer of sorts, a dying breed who takes tunes from the 1980s and ’90s and gives them a Sinatra-like spin, torturing the time signatures and augmenting the arrangements to make familiar pop standards from generations past feel fitting for a mostly listless local crowd.
His day job is a manager for a local restaurant, but when an up-and-coming singer starts to accost one of his staff, his physical altercation results not in plaudits but his own firing. Fortuitously, he had been spotted at an early gig by a legendary talent booker, Mickey Albano (Al Pacino), and after some awkward negotiations with Easy’s hapless brother/agent/manager, Sam (Simon Rex), Easy’s life is set to get a lot more, well, easy.
The script by “True Detective” creator Nic Pizzolatto shines with the subterranean intrigue of modern Vegas, and the way the divide between the old strip and new is mined gives the film much of its visual flair. When engaged in dialogue, Vaughn’s role is exemplary, his quiet rage as convincing as his seemingly irrational commitment to elevating his doofus brother’s station in life. Kate Mara’s role as Lucy, a woman under the wing of Albano but emotionally tied to Sam, is perhaps the most thankless, yet she injects welcome dimensionality to the role, making her far more than a throwaway love interest to distract from what’s, for the most part, a series of arguments between testosterone-fueled men wishing to outdo one another.
Pizzolatto’s fine reputation means the likes of Shania Twain, Cobie Smulders, Mary Steenburgen, and (the beloved) Fred Melamed make appearances, but this is really Easy’s ride throughout. A few lines of dialogue thrown the band member’s way make them less window dressing than otherwise. Still, given their astute capacity to mime to the playback track, it’s clear they’re better behind their instruments than anything.
Which leads to the film’s fatal flaw, and it’s a doozie. We’re to believe in the magic of Easy finally getting discovered after decades in the trenches, elevated to the big time by his mercurial new guardian angel. He’s set to move from the off-strip stage, usually filled with mediocre magicians and drunk tourists, into the grand halls of the Wynn, one of the talismanic hotels on the modern strip.
And yet… Vaughn isn’t up to the singing. Let’s be charitable, he’s able to follow a tune, and if this were, say, something with the musical requirements of the Gwyneth Paltrow/Huey Lewis classic karaoke film “Duets,” all would be forgiven. And yet despite his charms, his powerful presence, and his ability to fondle a Shure Unidyne 55S microphone with appropriately phallic precision, the singing makes it nigh on impossible to believe for a moment that this is the hidden-gem talent that Albano has been looking for for years.
If one (somehow) completely ignores the utter ridiculousness of a musical performance anchored with mediocre singing (insert snarky Russel Crowe-related comments here, if you’d like), there’s still a lot of fun to be had from the film. Pacino is comfortably in his sit-in-a-chair-and-steal-the-scene period of his glorious acting career, and audiences are all the more blessed by his continued presence. Rex does his best to be sympathetic while selling out his brother’s future, and Vaughn, above all, takes his towering frame and coiled-spring-like demeanor to the utmost, making even his most self-destructive of decisions feel absolutely in keeping with his character.
So, yes, the mediocre nature of his singing strains one’s suspension of disbelief to the breaking point; the rest of the narrative makes this a worthwhile chapter in Vaughn’s Vegas adventure story. Dancing around this critical aspect of “Easy Waltz’s” misstep isn’t easy, but for those who choose to ignore this obvious sour note, there’s still much to applaud about this fun little adventure in Sin City.
