Kathmandu:

T\he saying is ‘What Happens In Vegas stays in Vegas’. Which is where the movie title What Happens In Vegas comes from. Actually a whole lot of rather naughty things happen in Vegas. Crooks. Con men. Cheating husbands. Wayward wives. And Oceans Eleven and Ocean Thirteen.

For me the best thing that ever came out of Vegas was the William H Macy movie The Cooler. It was about a man hired by a casino to bring bad luck to winners. But I digress.

When the notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel opened the first casino, Vegas became a circus for both sleaze and talent. The best singers croon there and the best lap dancers do their thing there.

You also lose or win money. There is an expression in America which goes “On my dime”. In this case in What Happens In Vegas, two strangers — a man and a woman win $3 million on her dime. And they hate each other.

What happens critic Peter Hammond calls “riotously funny”.

Guys are going to like this rom-com, chick-flick as much as girls.

Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher echo the all-romantic pairings like Spencer Tracy and Kate Hepburn or Rock Hudson and Doris Day.

Says Hammond, “Jack Fuller (Kutcher) is a slacker carpenter just fired by his ungrateful father

(Treat Williams). Joy McNally (Diaz) is a commodities trader who lives her life by the numbers

— both professionally and personally — and has just been dumped by her fiancée (Jason Sudeikis). At the urging of their respective best friends Hater (Rob Corddry) and Tipper (Lake Bell), they head to Vegas for the weekend, designed to help them forget their big city woes. As in all films of this ilk, Jack and Joy ‘meet cute’ when both sets of friends are accidentally booked into the same hotel room. Once that mess is sorted out, they all set off on a wild drunken party spree, which ends with a blitzed Jack and Joy’s nuptials at a quickie wedding chapel. As reality strikes along with the light of morning, the now-battling couple plan an annulment that becomes complicated when Jack hits a $3 million slot jackpot with Joy’s quarter. Both claim the cash but in order to get the money, a New York judge (Dennis Miller) determines they must prove they are serious about the marriage and gives them six months to become a real couple. Diaz is no stranger to ‘party girl’ scenarios, so the early scenes fit her like a glove. Kutcher counters her nicely as a slacker dude caught up in circumstances beyond his control. An early sequence in which they check into the same room is played at such high-pitched hysteria — followed by a Vegas spree that seems so MTV-quick cut style— you worry the film will not come back down to earth. But thanks to its stars and a generally fine supporting cast, the rest of the picture recovers in style and is played for laughs grounded in reality. Although this is essentially a Cameron/Ashton showcase, there are still some great wisecracks from the actors cast as their friends.

With his little-seen gem last year Starter for Ten starring James McAvoy, newcomer Tom Vaughan showed considerable skill directing character comedy. His first big studio outing is much broader but again confirms his talent for getting the best out of his stars. Vegas isn’t loaded with style or signature shots, but it keeps us engaged for 98 minutes and sports a light tone that lets the audience have as much fun as the actors seem to be having.”