Saint John Of Las Vegas DVD Review

How in the hell did this film gross only $102,647 at the Box Office?Oh yeah,it's an indie dramedy.But how in the hell did this film get only a 22% on Rotten Tomatoes.I Mean what could be wrong with this film?With a pheonomanal cast (Steve Buschemi,Romany Malco,Peter Dinklage,Danny Trejo ect.),and Stanley Tucci and Spike Lee in the role of producing,you would expect a pretty damn good film! Well that's what I Got.

This Year They're have been SO MANY Indie Films that were phenomanal(GreenBerg,The Ghost Writer,Defendor ect.),well this definitle gets added to the list!

John(Steve Buschemi)is an auto insurance agent who lives in a gated community in Alberquerque,New Mexico.Although he's living with a secret.He's an addicted gambler.Everything from Lotto to Blackjack,the whole Schbang.When he asks his boss(The Hillarious Peter Dinklage)for a raise he is promoted to a traveling fraud debunker.He is assigned a mission along with his no bullshit partner Virgil(Bad Ass Romany Malco)to go to Las Vegas to catch a stripper for lying about getting rear ended(Emmanuelle Chiriqui from You Dont Mess With The Zohan).The reluctnant John goes to Vegas with Virgil leaving his Smiley Faced Obsessed girlfriend (Sarah Silverman)behind.

First the Pros.Malco and Buschemi make (VERY)Surprisingly the perfect team.The scenes when John is talking to his girlfriend they feel very genuine and realistic.The direction for this film was great,especially the cinematography which was breath-taking.This film also a very underated script that felt so raw and comfortable,to me at least.The musical score by David Torn(The Wackness)felt sublime and to me felt to resemble Taxi Driver's score in a repetive fashion without getting annoying.

If I had 1 thing to gripe about is that it would've been cool if Buschemi's character John actually went to a casino instead of going to a bar with a cheap black jack table.But that's it.


As for the performances , Buschemi was in his top form giving one of the best performances of his career up, there with Monster House and Reservoir Dogs.Malco adds every nuance of bad assery not taking no for an answer stchik to his character perfectly.Silverman in a very different role is scary funny in the quirkiest way especially at the end.Despite that Dinklage was in only 2 scenes he stole them very subtly and giving a Way funnier performance than he did in Death At A Funeral.Danny Trejo and John Cho give great cameo performances, especially Cho in an unreconizeable role making me laugh at everything he said.

As for director Hue Rhodes.He's was a winner and definitley deserves a chicken dinner!



10/10