It’s last orders at the Roaring Twenties, a dive bar on the less salubrious sidestreets of the Vegas strip. Marc, the jolly barkeep, wonders what will become of Michael, a white-haired regular, when the establishment closes forever at the end of the day. Michael prides himself on having failed before he became an alcoholic. “I ruined myself sober,” he insists. That’s fairly typical of the kind of boast one hears around the Roaring Twenties.
As the day – and then night – wears on, another regular pulls up her shirt to show off her “60-year-old titties.” The barflies don’t come and go. They arrive and stay until the bitter end. The drunken arguments get hazier and tempers increasingly flare. Shay, a woman “who can take care of herself”, takes over from Marc. Her teenage son and his friends smoke weed outside. They prove as blearily philosophical and the older patrons. In keeping with the inebriated cast, the film staggers between moments. A cake is wheeled out bearing the inscription “This Place Sucked Anyway.” An African-American army veteran watches as white patrons rap along to A$AP Rocky’s F*ckin’ Problems. There are several such musical interludes. Marc pulls out a guitar and performs Roy Orbison’s Crying. Everyone sings along when Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler plays on the radio. Jhené Aiko’s Comfort Inn Ending is heard over a late altercation. As a fly-on-the-wall documentary, one is tempted to make comparisons with the carefully curated Americana of the Maysles brothers or the institutional studies of Frederick Wiseman. But all is not as it seems in Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets.
The Roaring Twenties is not in Vegas, but in the Turner Brothers native New Orleans. The clientele have not wandered in off the street. They’ve been carefully cast to play versions of themselves. Michael, who repeatedly refers to himself as a failed actor, is Michael Martin, a well known Louisiana stage actor; Marc is local musician Marc Paradis. Knowing about the artifice makes the already hugely engaging Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets all the more impressive.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” announces the knowing scribble on an introductory title card. The glimpses of television in the background are as calibrated as the players, with reports from the 2016 presidential race and absurd advice for cruise ship holidays. This may be a clever fiction but it’s fascinating, comical, and dignified delve into the American underclass, nonetheless.
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