This is film noir in full daylight. Amir Naderi depicts the addiction of gambling and how it destroys the fragile happiness of an ordinary American family. The couple and their kid only aspire to cultivate their garden, but the promise of a buried treasure under it will make them destroy it. Little by little the garden becomes a metaphor for the couple. The chaos invades their lives. Only the relationship between the kid and the father survives. Despite what he goes through, the kid ends up supporting his father, because he has the instinct of what fate is. Here Amir Naderi applies one of the key rules of great stories : show what is at the same time unexpected and unavoidable.
But these are not the only qualities of the film. The performance of these non-professionnal actors would make tired stars like Bruce Willis blush (I just saw Die Hard 3, it seems that only Bruce Willis’ lip is acting). The photography is beautiful, both bitter and colourful. The framing of each plan is perfect.
Last, it should be a mistake to think this movie is an “art” movie, because in this context the art adjective diminished its appeal. It is a classic film. It reminds of Coppola’s Conversation or of Pekinpah’s characters obsessed with a single idea. One also think of John Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”.
Amir Naderi is a great filmmaker. I heard once a galerist saying about a painter that “his paintings are not statics. Sometime they succeed, sometimes they fail”. One can say the same about Naderi’s unrelented quest all along his career. Vegas is one of his stunning success.