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.

Malle's Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner and hence successfully procured 5 Oscar nominations in 1982, the Big Five (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Script) but lost all of them. The opening voyeuristic gaze towards a young Susan Sarandon's bare breasts is a brazen invitation to a tale of lust and passion, but when it reveals its beholder is a weather-beaten codger, an ethical uneasiness has been motivated on the subject matter as a knee-jerking response, a December-may obsession has its intrinsic inclination to prompt its viewers with polarized acceptance. Luckily, Burt Lancaster is spry and self-aware as the pip-squeak, who sends off a dignity-ballasted aplomb even when he is dictated by his old flame for money, and Malle and screenwriter John Guare mercifully glistens his twilight years with a belated opportunity to spice up his low-end life, and the ending is a tad out of left field but also understandable with its benevolent gesture to a sympathetic soul. This is authentically Ms. Sarandon's big breakthrough role, a simple girl always on-the-make and striving for a better life (getting married with a sad sack to get out of a provincial town, taking croupier class to secure a job in the casino), not that Oscar-worthy in my opinion, but she is a natural performer to oscillates between spitfire honesty and self-serving shrewdness; by contrast, Lancaster's Oscar-nomination is more deserving, merely a cipher would be left unnoticed at the shady corner of casino shindig, finally pays his dues to save a lady and revitalize his own life, though Sarandon's sexual allure is the precondition, Malle and Guare carefully skirt around the prickly issue by injecting a more acceptable closure of their relationship. Kate Reid, as garish as she is in the role of an aging silk-stocking widow, embellishes the film with her own way of levity (the ineffable expression when Lancaster cops a feel in her bed) while other supporting cast is purely bells and whistles. I cannot say this is Malle's apotheosis, my favorite among his oeuvre (so far) is still THE FIRE WITHIN (1963, 9/10), nevertheless Atlantic CITY never loses its zest in spinning a yarn for the aged generation, and it is also a sensible elegy to those who dies without fulfilling their dreams, it is never too late to shoot a few mobsters!

Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" is as much a look at the changes that the east coast's gambling mecca was undergoing as it is a story of an aging gangster and a waitress. The elderly Lou (Burt Lancaster) talks about how the city used to be. Of course, part of what the movie shows is that even the renovation can't truly hide the gritty side of things, as the thugs are looking for the cocaine. The most famous scene is Sally's (Susan Sarandon) rubbing the lemon juice on herself to get the fish smell off, but the demolition of the old buildings, the crime bosses, and the whole end sequence tell plenty of stories as well. A very good movie.PS: Watch for an appearance by Wallace Shawn as a waiter. Malle soon afterwards cast him in "My Dinner with Andre".

The story of an ageing two bit numbers runner and his unusual relationship with an ambitious waitress, trying to make it as a croupier, might not sound like the most exciting storyline, but I couldn't remember a moment in the film when I wasn't hooked. Malle's direction in showing the old and new, the past and the future, with Atlantic City as the backdrop (gambling had only been legalised in New Jersey in 1979) is beyond criticism. Lancaster and Sarandon represent all this from the character side and both give exception performances. The plot in many ways plays second fiddle to the character building, the relationship between the two protagonists and the numerous metaphors used throughout.Robert Joy has stolen a bag of cocaine from the mob and is soon on the run with his pregnant girlfriend (McLaren) and hides out at her sister's flat (Sarandon), who is also his ex-wife. He then by chance, meets Lancaster (who is also Sarandon's neighbour and is infatuated with her), who likes to make out he was a big time person, but is and always was a nothing! This leads to Lancaster helping out in what he hopes will make him a somebody at last before a completely new city he won't know is built and people who don't want to know him arrive.If you haven't seen this or heard much about it, please do so. It truly is one of those gems a film that is ageless and works on every level! One of the best films of the 1980's!