Leaving Las Vegas
List Price:
Our Price: $3.74
You Save: $11.21 (75%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.09 (click here)
Category: VHS Video
See more movie releases
Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Graham Beckel, Kim Adams, Nicolas Cage, Shashi Bhatia, Valeria GolinoPrimary Contributor: Nicolas Cage
Primary Contributor: Elisabeth Shue
Edition: VHS Tape
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Digital Video Transfer, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 111 minutes
Release Date: 1996-11-12
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of Leaving Las Vegas
Movie Review: It may go down smooth, but it burns when it hits your heart...
Summary: 5 Stars
I just want to say this right off the bat; I honestly think that 1995 has seriously got to be one of the greatest years of film in recent history. There are just so many cinematic gems to be found within that particular year, and `Leaving Las Vegas' is truly one of them. I will admit that I was skeptical at first. I am not a fan of Nicholas Cage, not in the least. He is a very mannered, `actorly' type of an actor; you know the type that always appears to be acting. I prefer my actors to sink into the rawness of their roles. Look at Crowe for instance, a chameleon type actor who never seems to be acting as much as he is simply `being'. That, and it also seems very hard for Cage to emote any fluctuation in emotion; he just comes off one note. I adored him in `Matchstick Men', a film that embellished his mannerisms and made them work to his advantage; and I loved him in `Adaptation', a performance that he openly attests to his going contrary to everything he's build his acting career on. In other words, he played the character as if he was a different actor, and it worked beautifully.
Those two stellar performances aside and Nicholas Cage is a mediocre at best actor in my eyes. So you can understand why watching yet another Cage film was not really that appealing to me.
Well, I'll just say that I am extremely glad that I decided to give it a go.
`Leaving Las Vegas' is responsible, not only for Cage's finest performance, but is honestly his finest film; ever. Yes, it is bleak and depressing and ultimately heartbreaking, but it is so emotionally connected without being overly sappy and or too heavy handed.
As a quick side point, that is another wonderful thing about the films of 1995; they are truly effecting without being spoonfuls of sympathy. Films like `Leaving Las Vegas' and the overwhelmingly fantastic `Dead Man Walking' are able to crawl inside the viewer and grab hold of their beating heart with a realness and rawness that reflects real life and not Hollywood's overly saccharine fabrication of it.
Anyways; back to the film. `Leaving Las Vegas' centers on a relationship that forms between as alcoholic mess of a man named Ben and a `hooker with a heart' named Sera. Ben has lost everything to his drinking, or is it that he starting drinking because he lost everything...either way, he has nothing except the bottle and so he decides to cash out all his savings and put himself up in Vegas to drink himself to death. The end looks gloomy and bitter for Ben, but he winds up meeting Sera and things start to change for him. Sera is tired and lonely and just needs someone to talk to, and when Ben pays her to just sit and talk she realizes that she needs him as much as he needs her. He tells her his plan and warns her not to try and ask him to change, that he will never stop drinking, and she allows herself to comply because she needs to be with him, but as they come closer with one another her love for Ben starts to tear away at her commitment to him.
It feels weird for me to say this, but the strongest facet of this film is the acting. Cage embodies Ben with such rawness and accuracy. I remember when I watched Meg Ryan devour her character in `When a Man Loves a Woman'; how she really soaked up her characters addiction. That is what Cage does here. His shakes and stutters and tantrums are so real, so believable and ultimately so heart wrenching. As good (or even great) as Cage is, Elizabeth Shue is a revelation.
Another quick side point about 1995 in general; it was truly an astonishing year for leaving ladies. The entire Oscar shortlist is beyond compare when stacked up against their usual picks for each and every performance nominated is worthy, even if I would replace one or two. Shue, Sarandon, Streep, Thompson, Stone...all of them are flawless and deserving of an Oscar (especially Shue and Sarandon) but there was Kidman in `To Die For' and even Silverstone in `Clueless' (such a fantastic comedic performance). I mean really, 1995 is above and beyond stellar.
Sorry bout that. Back to the film, or more importantly, back to Shue. Elizabeth Shue is not my favorite actress either. She is decent, but hardly ever mind blowing. I think that is what makes her performance all the more unbelievable good. As Sera, Shue captures the fading light in her eyes that starts to shine brighter when she finds Ben. In Ben she sees someone that needs her, and I mean really needs her. She is used to having men `need' her in ways that degrade her, but Ben truly `needs' her and that truth fleshes out the real woman that is Sera. Her performance is a true `tour-de-force' if I ever saw one and unbelievable moving and touching.
In its final frames `Leaving Las Vegas' attacks the viewer and strips them so-to-speak of everything they have inside. The film is a tragic yet beautifully accurate representation of the disease that is alcoholism and the effect it has on a human spirit. Contrary to `When a Man Loves a Woman'; a film that sported a fabulous performance yet fell into the trap of Hollywood induced clich?s, `Leaving Las Vegas' allows the bleak realities of human tragedy to ring true, and the effect it a much further reaching and effecting film. In the end, Ben finally leaves Las Vegas, but Las Vegas will never leave us.
Summary of Leaving Las Vegas
Best Actor Oscar? winner* Nicolas Cage and Best Actress nominee* Elisabeth Shue set the screen ablaze in this profoundly moving love story. Nominated* for two additional Academy Awards?Director and Adapted Screenplaythis emotionally charged powerhouse of a film graced over 100 10 Best Lists including Roger Ebert's #1 Movie of the Year. Ben Sanderson (Cage) is a career alcoholic who has hit rock bottom. Trashing all personal and professional ties to his L.A. existence, he sets off for the lights of Vegas on a mission: to drink himself to death. There he meets Sera (Shue), a beautiful, seen-it-all hooker. From the moment Ben and Sera connect, they form a unique bond based upon unconditional acceptance and mutual respect that will change each of themforever. In the words of David Thompson of Los Angeles Magazine, Leaving Las Vegas is a masterpiece. *1995One of the most critically acclaimed films of 1995, this wrenchingly sad but extraordinarily moving drama provides an authentic, superbly acted portrait of two people whose lives intersect just as they've reached their lowest depths of despair. Ben (Nicolas Cage, in an Oscar-winning performance) is a former movie executive who's lost his wife and family in a sea of alcoholic self-destruction. He's come to Las Vegas literally to drink himself to death, and that's when he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute who falls in love with him--and he with her--despite their mutual dead-end existence. They accept each other as they are, with no attempts by one to change the other, and this unconditional love turns Leaving Las Vegas into a somber yet quietly beautiful love story. Earning Oscar nominations for Best Director (Mike Figgis), Best Adapted Screenplay (Figgis, from John O'Brien's novel) and Best Actress (Shue), the film may strike some as relentlessly bleak and glacially paced, but attentive viewers will readily discover the richness of these tragic characters and the exceptional performances that bring them to life. (In a sad echo of his own fiction, novelist John O'Brien committed suicide while this film was in production.) The DVD features uncut, unrated footage that was not included in the film's theatrical release. --Jeff Shannon
Drama VHS Video
VHS Video Movies
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation VHS Video
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics VHS Video
- Comedy VHS Video
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama VHS Video
- Educational
- Fitness
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror VHS Video
- Kids & Family
- Military & War VHS Video
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports VHS Video
- Television VHS Video
- Westerns VHS Video
Movies most talked about in Addictions-Alcoholics
Days of Wine & RosesWarner Bros. Pictures; Release date: 1994-12-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $16.95
Trees LoungeLive / Artisan; Release date: 2002-03-26; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops:
28 Days (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2000-09-19; DVD
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops:
Clean & SoberWarner Home Video; Release date: 1998-09-14; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.65
Price in other shops:
My Name Is Bill W.Warner Home Video; Release date: 1997-09-02; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $28.99
Shakes the ClownSony Pictures; Release date: 1999-06-08; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $16.40
Lost WeekendUniversal Studios; Release date: 1992-03-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.67
Price in other shops:
DrunksFox Lorber; Release date: 2000-03-21; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
AfflictionMvd Visual; Release date: 1998-09-08; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.48
Price in other shops:
Leaving Las VegasMGM (Video & DVD); Release date: 1996-11-12; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
Similar VHS Movies
Blow (Infinifilm Edition)DEPP,JOHNNY; Release date: 2001-09-11; DVD
Best price: $4.49
Price in other shops:
Fear and Loathing in Las VegasUniversal; Release date: 1998-11-17; DVD
Best price: $11.45
Price in other shops:
The Basketball DiariesTeam Marketing; Release date: 2004-10-19; DVD
Best price: $4.14
Price in other shops:
Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut)Lions Gate; Release date: 2001-08-14; DVD
Best price: $7.44
Price in other shops:
The Lost WeekendMILLAND,RAY; Release date: 2001-02-06; DVD
Best price: $5.93
Price in other shops:
28 Days (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2000-09-19; DVD
Best price: $4.05
Price in other shops:
Days of Wine and RosesWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-01-06; DVD
Best price: $11.97
Price in other shops:
When a Man Loves a WomanGARCIA/RYAN; Release date: 2000-02-15; DVD
Best price: $4.32
Price in other shops:
My Name Is Bill WWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-06-06; DVD
Best price: $12.83
Price in other shops:
Clean and SoberRelease date: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops: