'COOLER' DEALS A FAMILIAR YET WINNING HAND.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE ODDS ARE that ``The Cooler'' should not be as pleasing as it ends up.

That's because we've seen all of its Las Vegas loser tricks 100 times before. There's the chronic gambler whose only luck is bad, indentured to the sociopathic casino boss whose own sentimental attachment to the ``glorious'' days of the precorporate, mega resort Sin City is the tough guy's Achilles heel. And of course, there's the tarnished angel who, while bartering her body for the umpteenth time, discovers something like true love in the transaction.

But as some would say, the winning is all in the playing. And first-time director Wayne Kramer, who co-wrote ``The Cooler's'' script with gambling enthusiast Frank Hannah, could not have asked for a better clutch of players than William H. Macy, Maria Bello and Alec Baldwin to infuse his seedy stereotypes with individuality and vibrant, unpredictable inner life.

Sad-sack expert Macy (think ``Fargo,'' ``Boogie Nights,'' ``Magnolia'' and ``Mystery Men'') hits a kind of iconic high/low as the hopeless Bernie Lootz. Bernie's luck is so bad that it infects others; his job at the dark, old-school Shangri-La Casino is just to hang around gamblers on a hot streak and, by sheer force of aura, arctic them out.

A valuable commodity in the gaming mecca, one would think. But that's not how it works for Bernie. He's only at the Shangri-La because its manager, childhood friend Shelly Kaplow (Baldwin), paid off all of Bernie's other debts around town in exchange for his services. Oh, and then he had Bernie knee-capped, which Bernie understood, kinda sorta. To say that their relationship is tortured is putting it mildly.

As are the vulgar, intimidating but strangely paternal Shelly's relations with money men from back east, who want to turn his beloved Shangri-La into the type of theme-park casino he despises. Worse, with his debt almost paid off, Bernie has let Shelly know that he plans to limp out of town in a week with the hope against hope of actually starting a life.

Complicating that tentative plan is cocktail waitress Natalie Belisario (Bello). She rewards a few kindnesses Bernie shows her with some hot, funny and realistically staged sex. Beside their wit - after having their own fun, Bernie gets Natalie to loudly fake pleasure for the benefit of the noisy hooker next door who works out of the scuzzy motel room next to the one he lives in - these scenes are so gloriously peculiar and natural that Kramer had to trim a few of them to avoid an NC-17 rating. Still, they give the film its heart.

And, in the context of the narrative, they hearten Bernie, apparently for the first time in his life. No longer thinking of himself as a total loser, however, inhibits his loser vibe. When gamblers in his orbit start winning, Shelly's shark instinct tells him that something must be done. And while that will certainly not be pretty, perhaps one of the gangster's unpredictable compassionate urges may come into play.

Or maybe it won't. The other great thing about ``The Cooler'' is its unlikely but persuasive view of human behavior: that it's as subject to the laws of chance as the role of any pair of dice. Not just the three leads, but most subordinate characters as well express kindnesses and cruelties, withering doubt and occasionally valid self-assurance, superstition and shrewdness, stupidity and a certain kind of wised-up nobility at the most unexpected junctures. The film even ends on a note that indicates God's overseeing the turn of each card - and regards the sweetly sleazy human tragicomedy in places like this with a properly black sense of humor.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

THE COOLER - Three stars

(R: sex, nudity, violence, language)

Starring: William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin.

Director: Wayne Kramer.

Running time: 1 hr. 41 min.

Playing: Galleria 16, Sherman Oaks; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; The Grove, Farmers Market; ArcLight, Hollywood; Monicas, Santa Monica; Edwards South Coast Village, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Likably lumpy story of a loser's redemption, despite every Vegas underbelly cliche in the bookie's book.