They say fate follows character, but in Steve Buscemi’s case, it should be “fate follows face.” Why is it when someone throws the master supporting actor a leading role, it’s a strange, quirky black comedy with midgets, strippers, nudists and plenty strung-out, sweaty Buscemi? In St. John of Las Vegas, Buscemi is a down-and-out recovering gambleholic who sets off on a surreal journey when assigned to a fraud investigation for the insurance company he works for. There’s a choice with any Buscemi film – do you place emphasis on the down-and-out or the quirky. St. John does quirky. The film is a weird, funny-strange, and rather pointless character study that has “cult” written all over it.
Buscemi plays John, a washed-up nobody who works in an insurance office in New Mexico and spends too much money on scratch-off lottery tickets. The film opens with some voiceover meditations on luck and chance. He is a man who had luck and it went away. This lays the foundation for the film’s story, which, apparently, is either about a man who discovers luck isn’t important or comes to terms with the fact that his luck will never return. This happens after a bad luck journey with Virgil (Romany Malco) a hard-edged star claims investigator who becomes John’s partner on a case involving a stripper’s totaled vehicle. The two set off to Las Vegas, John’s former home and the location of the accident, and this makes the ex-gambler, John, very nervous. Virgil is frosty with John, to say the least, playing the role like a tough guy in a John Singleton film. He forces John to act as his gofer and fall guy.
The character growth here seems to be about John learning to stand-up for himself. During his trip, he falls back into gambling, but then — wha-la — resolution, and St. John is back home with his love interest Jill (Sarah Silverman). There are a few comedic bright-points, notable Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) as Mr. Townsend, John’s egomaniacal boss, and Sarah Silverman as Jill, the always-cheery, air-brained office hottie who quits her affair with Mr. Townsend and inexplicably falls for John. But while St. John of Las Vegas is good for a few laughs, it’s as haphazard as its humor, a characterless character study that leaves Buscemi trying to make the best out of a badly dealt hand.
Main image: Buscemi and Romany Malco in St. John of Las Vegas (Courtesy Photo).
