Love Ranch (DVD)

LOVE RANCH is the bizarre but true story of the origins of Northern Nevada’s phenomenally successful Brothel Industry. In the 1970s, Joe & Sally Comforte’s Mustang Ranch outside Reno, Nevada, was America’s first and most infamous legalized house of prostitution. Portraying these two modern-day outlaws as fictional characters are Academy Award® Winners, Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren. An ex-taxi driver, Charlie Bontempo (Pesci) has actually made his American Dream come true – promoting the legalization of prostitution in Nevada and delivering to himself and his wife a literal ‘pot of gold’. Grace Bontempo (Mirren) is the brains behind Charlie’s money-making machine - a tough, intelligent ‘Madame’ whose task it is to manage the twenty eccentric women who work as prostitutes at The Ranch. LOVE RANCH reveals the human side of this illicit cottage industry when Charlie buys the contract of Argentine heavy-weight champion, Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) in hopes of promoting a World Championship fight between Bruza & Muhammad Ali. Because Charlie is an ex-felon he names Grace as Bruza’s titular manager, setting off a flame of passion in his seemingly unshakeable wife that erupts into a love triangle with murderous repercussions.