Film Review: Love Ranch (2010)

"Not Another Cougar Movie"

By: Jordan Overstreet
Published: October 14, 2010

Helen Mirren, brothel madam.

Not the two words you would usually associate with the Academy Award-winning Dame of the British realm; however, in Taylor Hackford's recent film "Love Ranch," Mirren makes the leap from Queen Elizabeth II to Nevada brothel owner Grace Bontempo.

With the collapse of the film's distribution company in early 2009, "Love Ranch" was placed on the shelf for over a year; and finally saw its release this past May in the market at the 62nd Festival de Cannes. Based on the real life events surrounding the 1976 murder of Argentine heavy weight Oscar Bonavena at Joe and Sally Conforte's Mustang Ranch, the film follows Grace and Charlie Bontempo (Mirren and Joe Pesci) as they run the first legal brothel, the Love Ranch, in 1976 Nevada.

While perhaps an unlikely vehicle for Hackford, whose last directorial venture was 2004's "Ray," his marriage to Mirren must have influenced him to take on the project. Nonetheless, it is Hackford's direction of the film that makes what sounds like another installment of the sleazy Home Box Office (HBO) series, "Cathouse" (which captures the daily ups and downs of the Bunny Ranch in Nevada), actually plausible and dramatically entertaining. "Love Ranch" is, at its core, a story about the dissolution of a marriage.

The film begins with Grace, sporting a sleek auburn bob, confessing to the audience, "Selling love will make you rich...that's what my mother taught me...just don't put your heart into it." As the title credits saunter across the silver screen and the sounds of Kool and the Gang become audible, we are transported to the brothel's 1976 New Year's celebration, during which Charlie, on a whim, announces his plan to make the brothel a high-class destination by investing in a new attraction for his clientele-a boxer. As Grace, recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, glares from the sidelines, Hackford gives the audience a sense of the union between the Bontempos. While rough around the edges (Charlie is a known bed partner to many of the ladies of the Ranch), their marriage is based on a strong business partnership, with Charlie as the face of the brothel and Grace working as the engineer behind the operation.

Mirren and Pesci are well matched to portray these middle-aged felons. Mirren is able to shed her royal persona and reinvent her onscreen image through the role of Grace Bontempo. Upon first glance, Mirren is unrecognizable. With her red hair coiffed in a beehive up-do and her eyelashes coated in mascara, Mirren could be Tammy Faye Messner's doppelganger.

No victim from the 1970's makeover, Pesci conjures up images of an older Elvis as he sports a purple leisure suit with matching cowboy hat and boots. Pesci, the great character actor of crime moguls, is up to his usual tricks in his role as Charlie. It as if he has aged to perfection and Mark Jacobsen's dialogue allows Pesci to open up like a good reserve wine. Similarly, Jacobsen has crafted such witty one-liners for the two to sling at each other that even in the most heated of arguments, Mirren and Pesci are still fun to watch onscreen.

However, the partnership between the Bontempos begins to crumble with the arrival of Charlie's newest attraction-the boxer, Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). Focused on his effort to legitimize the business of prostitution, Charlie leaves Grace in charge of managing Bruza's boxing career. While Grace complains, "I've got twenty five psychotic whores to manage," she ultimately takes on training the Argentine Neanderthal. Then the writers from "Days of Our Lives" must have hijacked Jacobsen's script and proceeded to write in a love story between the sixty-five year old Grace and the thirty-three year old Bruza.

In spite of the recent circulation of photographs of a very toned Mirren clad only in a bikini, there is nothing sexy about Mirren bedding Peris-Mencheta. As they tussle in scarlet satin sheets, I can feel my gag reflex kick into high gear. Their liaison is totally unbelievable, and when Grace plans to actually run off with Bruza, Mirren just looks pathetic and, while I hate to say it, old. I will forever be indebted to Charlie's bodyguard, who finally puts the audience out of its misery, by shooting Bruza and restoring reality. While Mirren sobs over her lover's lifeless body, there is not a wet eye in the theatre. Regardless of Mirren's appeal, she cannot make Grace's relationship with Bruza work; perhaps no actress can.

"Love Ranch," despite its flaws, is a campy piece of entertainment. That is, of course, if you can allow yourself to get wrapped up in the cinematic experience and actually believe that everything you are seeing on screen, even the bizarre union of Mirren and Pers-Mencheta , is plausible. For the more enlightened movie-goers, this may be a difficult feat; however, for the housewives of suburbia (and my mother), I suspect it will be a hit. While "Love Ranch" will be released on DVD in November, I hope the problems Hackford and others experienced in releasing the film is a sign from the movie God that the era of the cougar is coming to an end.

Love Ranch. Directed by Taylor Hackford; written for the screen by Mark Jacobsen; released by E1 Entertainment International; starring Helen Mirren, Joe Pesci, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, and introducing Sergio Peris-Mencheta. Rated R; run time: 117 minutes.