
In the mid 1970s, near Reno, Nevada, Grace Bontempo (Dame Helen Mirren) runs the Love Ranch, a legal brothel. Her husband Charlie (Joe Pesci), with big dreams, a felony record, and an aptitude for spending and infidelity, is the brothel's public face. On the day Grace's doctor tells her she has cancer in an advanced state, Charlie takes on new client, Argentine boxer Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Charlie's ticket to fame: he hopes to promote a fight with Ali. Because... (Full plot summary below)
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In the mid 1970s, near Reno, Nevada, Grace Bontempo (Dame Helen Mirren) runs the Love Ranch, a legal brothel. Her husband Charlie (Joe Pesci), with big dreams, a felony record, and an aptitude for spending and infidelity, is the brothel's public face. On the day Grace's doctor tells her she has cancer in an advanced state, Charlie takes on new client, Argentine boxer Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Charlie's ticket to fame: he hopes to promote a fight with Ali. Because of Charlie's felonies, Grace is Bruza's titular manager. With the I.R.S. and the church ladies circling the business, Grace takes the manager's role seriously and, along the way, Bruza charms her. Secrets play out: is there love at the Love Ranch? How will Charlie respond?
Leave your thoughts about Love Ranch.
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanTaylor Hackford, fails to squeeze the tiniest bit of juice, sexy or comic or otherwise, out of the chintzy-libertine locale. |
| Movie RetrieverBrian TallericoThe kind of unabashed embarrassment that should send people to their attorneys to see if there's any legal way to get it removed from their pages on IMDB, Wikipedia, and the like. |
| Kaplan vs. KaplanJeanne KaplanScreenwriter Mark Jacobson has done little to make this love triangle clearer than mud. The script is one trite cliche after another, and Pesci is little more than a caricature of himself in past roles. |
| East Bay ExpressKelly VanceIf Hackford & Co. really and truly wanted to evoke the Sleazy Seventies, they should have studied Pam Grier's filmography like a religious text. |
| VarietyPeter DebrugeA tawdry look at the early days of Nevada's legalized brothel business that plays more like Lifetime fodder than the Martin Scorsese pictures that serve as its model. |
| Moving Pictures MagazineAnnlee EllingsonMirren is fabulous, natch. Unfortunately, the script by Mark Jacobson relies on lazy storytelling. Nor does Hackford bring much energy to the direction. |
| One Guy's OpinionFrank SwietekPresumably the aim was to meld dark humor with passionate ardor and high drama, but the tone here is lumpy, crass and overheated. |
| Lessons of DarknessNick SchagerA misbegotten jumble that clumsily synthesizes various incongruous elements. |
| Film Journal InternationalChris BarsantiA tasty story about whores, boxers, jealousy and greed gets run through the wringer of mediocrity in Taylor Hackford's limp, long-delayed drama starring his wife, Helen Mirren. |
| MovielineMichelle OrangeMirren tricked out in mid-70's pimp wear -- ahead of her time, she even brandishes a cane -- has a certain charm, but novelty alone can't keep Love Ranch's tiresome tropes and plodding storyline from dragging the film down through the Nevada dust. |