Sex & Lies In Sin
City (2008/Sony DVD)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Telefilm: C+
Though it
is predictable and we have seen better films on the subject and in the world of
Las Vegas, Peter Medak’s Sex & Lies In Sin City (2008) is still; an
amusing, entertaining tale about the real life case of rich Vegas casino owner
Ted Binion (Matthew Modine) and how he gets obsessed with a stripper (Mena
Suvari, very good here) who could eventually be the cause of his demise.
The story
is more complex and also involves a mother-in-law (Marcia Gay Harden) who can’t
stand the new wife, a boyfriend on the side (Johnathon Schaech) and a fortune
that also includes many bars of silver, still valuable despite their crashed
price from the 1980s. Medak has a good
cast and he knows it, runs with it and prevents this from becoming a soaper,
keeps the energy level above the usual Lifetime telefilm (they co-produced
this) and is worth sitting through once just to see what works.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 x 1 image is not bad, but not as good as it could
have been throughout. Still, it is one
of the more consistent looking new telefilms we have seen in years, though that
is because most look so bad. The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix stretches the audio a bit and though the recording is good, the
soundfield is inconsistent. There are no
extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
