Watch Atlantic City For Free

I love this movie so much

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

To no fault of my own, I was born and raised in New Jersey. Regardless, please don't hold that fact alone against me. I deserve a chance. After a hiatus of ten years for good behavior, I returned to the state to attend graduate school at the same time that this film was produced and when there was so much hope that a crumbling, dying Atlantic City would be revitalized by the recently legalized casino industry. When the taxpayers of New Jersey approved the legalization of gambling in 1976, they were showered with empty promises of how a vision of gleaming Atlantic City casinos would substantially subsidize the state's very inefficient and wasteful public education system. Today, more than forty years after the much touted "Promise of Atlantic City", New Jersey is among the highest taxed states in the nation, largely because of the very same, maddening costs of an extremely localized public education system. In spite of the highest real property taxes in the country and additional taxes and lotteries of every kind, the state is also financially bankrupt as of this writing in 2018. The promise of Atlantic City was a total lie, not only for the state but for the city. For me, this movie is a brilliant illustration of the hopelessness that lies ahead, not only for all of the characters within the story but for the perpetually troubled and morally corrupt city at the center of the movie. Near the end, as Lou discusses the kind of pizza that Sally is supposed to bring him, he knows that she will not be returning. "Remember to ditch the car," he advises her in a sudden flash to reality. As he peers out of the motel window watching Sally drive away, Lou, unlike the duped taxpayers and voters of New Jersey in 1976, is too smart not to understand the truth of the matter.As good as Burt Lancaster was throughout his career, going back to "The Killers" in 1946, the man aged like fine wine. I recently viewed "The Swimmer", produced when he was 55, and just watched this film when he was 67. As interesting as the basic concepts of both films were, they would not have been as captivating without the depth and intelligence that Lancaster brought to their leading roles. Susan Sarandon as Sally kept up with the old master every step of the way, and she looked stunning. I would love her as my croupier any day of the week, not that I can afford to indulge. I worked too hard for my money through the years.In order to tell his very sad but compelling story, Director Louis Malle brilliantly used the backdrop of a crumbling, decadent city that had been given false hope on a massive, monumental scale. This time, I was happy to focus on the actual action of the movie rather than the subtitles so that I could appreciate the extent of his very talented directing ability.

Louis Malle created a poetic "Atlantic City," released in 1980 and starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Reid. Lancaster plays Lou, a small-time mobster from the old days of Atlantic City. He is handsome, dresses very grandly, and pretends that he used to be in the big-time. Actually he worked in some menial job for a mobster and now takes care of his widow Grace (Kate Reid) who appears bedridden at first. He takes care of her dog, makes her food, rubs her limbs to increase circulation, and occasionally sleeps with her. She's verbally abusive to him. Grace came to Atlantic City in the '40s as a contestant in a Betty Grable lookalike contest, met her future husband, and never left.Lou meets a young waitress and would-be croupier, Sally, and their lives soon collide. He's attracted to her. Sally's sister has run off with Sally's husband, and the two show up to stay with her. Her sister is pregnant. Sally's husband Dave is there to do a drug deal; he meets Lou and stores the cocaine in Lou's apartment. People are after him, so he sends Lou to someone's apartment on a delivery, and Lou is to pick up the money. When Lou arrives home after the errand, Dave is dead. The thugs didn't get their dope, so eventually they turn to Sally. In fact, Lou has the dope and also the money from the first delivery. And he plans on taking up where Dave left off.This is such a well-done film, hearkening back to the old days of Atlantic City just as the city is being rebuilt as a eastern Las Vegas. Lou is part of the old days; Sally is ambitious and wants to better herself. Lou, never anybody, now longs to be somebody for her.The acting is wonderful. Burt Lancaster is magnificent as Lou, an old man who still has young dreams. It's a very subtle performance, very touching and sometimes funny. Susan Sarandon does a great job as Sally, creating a totally believable character.John Guare has written a great script, the first important component of a film, and it was in the hands of a master, Louis Malle. The film was made in Canada, and I recognized many Canadian actors, but the location shots are excellent.Highly recommended, a sublime experience.

Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" shimmers with intentional grunge, like fallen-angel memories as seen through lopsided rose-colored glasses. John Guare's loopy script is played at just the right speed, and the funny lines of dialogue--like wobbly baseballs--come at you in slow-motion (they catch you unaware). Present-day oyster bar waitress/ croupier-in-training Susan Sarandon crosses paths with former Old World gangster Burt Lancaster while dealing with her estranged drug-trafficking husband, a relationship that ignites a final fire under the romantic-minded gentleman who remembers Atlantic City the way it used to be. Malle seems to personally relate to Guare's theme of a gambling town (and its inhabitants) in transition. It may indeed be the best work of the filmmaker's career, and Burt Lancaster visibly relishes the chance to be quick and adept and clever again; he's like a lion relearning how to roar. The mood is occasionally muted, and the deliberate pacing might put some viewers off--but, if so, it wouldn't be for long. "Atlantic City" sneaks up on you. It has a drizzly kind of dazzle that lingers in the air like vintage perfume. ***1/2 from ****

'Atlantic City' draws its two main characters so well, and they are so well acted by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, that it is only at the end that we feel let down for caring about two people who frankly don't deserve it. There are points in this finely directed and well-written film where we think something wonderful (or tragic) will happen to them, that they've gotten a lucky break which will enable them to break free from their shallow dreams (or perhaps go down in flames), but in the end, they go right on living like they did before, albeit with a little more money. I daresay everyone on the planet has known someone like Sarandon's Sally, a young woman struggling to make it who's already been through a bad marriage and hard times and is trying to start over. She's pretty but not gorgeous, energetic; she's also foolish, a little crazy, and emotionally unstable to a degree. Sally is training to be a casino dealer, a career she almost blindly hopes will solve all her problems and maybe even allow her to live in France. She approaches the training with all the fervor of someone who's been talked into a pyramid scheme. But just below the almost manic surface, one can tell she is bound to burn out on the idea sooner or later. She never gets the chance though. Burt Lancaster is Lou Pascal, a former mobster (so he says) who hasn't been outside of Atlantic City in twenty-seven years, even though there is nothing for him there anymore, if in fact there ever really was. He is reduced to taking fifty-cent bets from people, mostly tenement dwellers in the poor black community. His companion of sorts is Grace, a woman about his age who, like him, lives in a past that frankly doesn't sound like it's much worth reliving. He waits on her, gets her groceries and does other errands for no particularly good reason other than he's been doing it so long, it's become a habit. They argue a lot but seem to feel genuine affection for each other. Atlantic City itself is shown in the early days of the casino boom, where there are two kinds of people: those like Sally who are going to work in the casinos, and those like Lou and Grace who are being pushed aside to make room for the glitzy gambling dens. The old run-down hotels are being torn down. Lou lives in a shabby room in one of them, as does Sally next door, though they don't know each at first. Lou finds himself unexpectedly making big money dealing cocaine (inadvertently courtesy of Sally's ex-husband) and begins playing the high-roller he always wanted to be, and pretends that he once was. But he really does have a heart, and he tries to help and 'protect' Sally. As a quirky slice-of-life, 'Atlantic City' hits almost all the right notes. But as a satisfying drama/character study, it leaves us hanging with an 'is that all there is?' kind of feeling. The thing about the ending isn't that it's such a huge downer, but that it is neither here nor there. We half-expect Lou to die trying to help Sally, or Sally to come to the realization she's been used and that learning French really isn't the answer. Instead, Sally steals most of the drug money from Lou and takes off down the road, none the wiser as far as can be told. And Lou goes back to Grace; the last shot is of them walking down the boardwalk, apparently content to be back where they started. It's more depressing than a genuinely depressing ending.