Louis Malle’s crime romance is warm, funny and worth lingering over, with Burt Lancaster making an ageing petty crook’s need for affection painfully clear. The fondness sometimes softens the danger, but Lancaster and Susan Sarandon make the romance count.
Atlantic City is a warm, quietly funny crime romance, and we recommend it with one reservation about its indulgence towards its central crook. Louis Malle and writer John Guare give an ageing small-time operator the attention usually reserved for a man with a much larger reputation. They take his wish for self-respect seriously, even when there is something faintly ridiculous about it. The crime matters, but the attraction is watching Burt Lancaster’s Lou try to feel worth somebody’s time.
Lancaster is the chief reason this works. He lets Lou’s faded grandeur remain visible without asking us to accept it at face value, and the desperation underneath prevents the performance from becoming a comfortable display of charm. We felt protective of Lou. Lancaster lets the strain show through his attempts at dignity, so that even being agreeable looks like hard work.
Susan Sarandon’s Sally gives that performance someone to answer to. Their scenes have an uncertainty that is more engaging than a neatly declared romance: we can see the attraction without feeling that either person has become simple or entirely knowable. Sarandon keeps Sally from being merely an appreciative audience for Lou, and their relationship retains a useful awkwardness alongside the tenderness. Kate Reid, as Grace, also helps keep this from becoming a film in which everyone else exists to admire Lancaster.
Richard Ciupka’s cinematography gives the declining resort a beauty that does not make it look healthy. We can understand why these people remain attached to it, and still see why attachment might be a mistake. Anne Pritchard’s production design makes the city’s shabbiness feel like somewhere lives have been spent, with a past that matters to the people still living there. Malle keeps the changing town present around the actors, so Lou’s concern about being left behind needs little explanation.
Suzanne Baron’s editing gives the relationship room to develop without forcing every exchange to advance the crime story. That relaxed pace suits Guare’s humour, which depends on our interest in people whose ambitions have outlasted their prospects. Michel Legrand’s music encourages the romantic reading, occasionally more than the scenes need. The film is already tender enough for us to wish it would leave a little more of that feeling to the actors.
Our reservation is that Malle and Guare can be too forgiving. Their affection for Lou sometimes makes the criminal business feel less troubling than it ought to, and anyone looking for a tense thriller may find the gentleness frustrating. The pleasure of watching him recover some self-respect occasionally takes precedence over questioning how much respect he deserves. A little less indulgence would have made the romance more persuasive, without requiring the film to turn sour or start passing sentences on its characters.
Within the gangster genre, its interest in a small-time operator gives the familiar promise of changing fortunes a particular urgency. Lou needs to believe that his life could still amount to something, and Lancaster makes that need enough to hold our attention. At 104 minutes, the film allows space for regret without exhausting our patience with it. Choose it when there is time to watch the actors closely, and no great need for the next gunshot.
