This is a Vegas movie that’s not about Vegas, a cubicle movie that’s not about office space, a love story that’s not about sex, or love, a buddy movie that’s not about the wacky hijinks a smooth black man and a square white man can get into, and a story about gambling that has less to do with card sharks and scratch cards than it has to do with insurance agents.

Steve Buscemi is John, the down-on-his-luck gambling addict who left Las Vegas with his brow knitted, a few white shirts and ties and a shine-able pair of black shoes in his suitcase, and wound up in some tract maze in Albuquerque only when his sad, magenta Acura ran out of gas. His apartment gate card doesn’t work, and he has to hoist the gate arm up into the air and jam on the gas to get out of the complex, denting his roof, and his gas card doesn’t work, requiring he go into the bewitching lair of the convenience store, where he inevitably loses $40 he doesn’t have on cleverly titled jackpots and scratch cards.

But he’s an optimist. The girl who works next to him (Sarah Silverman, speaking normally and playing the oblivious, bland sexpot) is cheerful in a lovely way, down to her yellow smiley face nails. And John’s getting his confidence up to ask the boss for a raise. That would be Mr. Townsend, whose massive office contains four opulent columns and the ability to hand out out-of-state, pair-up-with-this-superstar assignments that turn insurance men like John into Secret Squirrels.

We can all sympathize with someone like John, who at least has a big, stucco palace with no foreclosure sign in front of it, has a car that’s not being eyed by repo, has a job where the cubicles are disappearing as positions and salaries are “downsized,” and can — in those few seconds scratching a quarter across a gleam of bronze wax, or leaning on green felt, strategizing like James Bond, can still dream.

In fact, we might feel a little envious. At least the people taking his money promise nothing, lie not, and bring a non-stop flow of Tahitian Tee-Hees to boot. That willingness to take any opportunity, any gamble, hums like a humid pulse in the air around us.

These days, the average workaholic can pay hundreds a month into systems — health insurance and retirement portfolios — that promise, “Cancer? You’ll get chemo. Cardiac arrest? We’ll have you back to eating Double Downs in no time. And keep paying an unnoticeable 15 percent every week and we’ll get you that RV and golf clubs and cuddle time with the grandkids before you can say ‘snowbird.’” And, in this country, these days, the average person knows all too well the shame and pain of having those systems remorselessly snap shut when they’re asked to do anything but pitch their jive.

“Cancer? But you never told us about that mole you had removed when you were 11. Here’s the bill for one of your 27 prescriptions. It’s $5,000. A month. Retirement? Didn’t you read the 15 pages of 6 point type that warned you about losing it all, or the prospectus where we detailed how we were putting your money into uninsurable, empty, hurricane-prone Florida condos mortgaged by aspiring flippers with a grad student’s guaranteed income?”

There’s a blindsiding, oddball, “Life Less Ordinary” vibe to this film, sort of like someone pitched it as The Vegas Flick, or the Gambler Redeemed By Love movie, where you feel, while watching it, that you can predict its path 10 moves down the line — and the house will bust you every time. The big boss will be 4-feet 5-inches, and it will never need to be made a punchline. There will be naked, gun-toting road warriors who take off their hats for Buscemi’s philosophical questioning.

You will see a sexy, sweet, never-pitiful lap dance by a stripper injured in a car crash — wearing a sequined scarf around her neck brace — and a carnival performer-slash-tow-truck-driver who’s sort of glum that his flame suit keeps bursting into fire due to a malfunction with a zipper and his fuel regulator. “Saint John” turns out to be a lot like a trip to Vegas. No matter how predictable you think it will be, the weirdness vortex always wins.

When we come to the clever twist on truth and the unanswered question at the end of “Saint John of Las Vegas,” though, gambling has only the most minute importance in any of it. The resolution to either issue is unimportant. The risk isn’t John’s high here. The game isn’t what we thought. But he’s back in a good way.

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in theaters anymore.