Lucky You Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)May 3rd, 2007
LUCKY YOU
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
LUCKY YOU, a not so lucky film since it's set to open against the Spider-Man juggernaut this Friday, suffers from many problems, all of its own making. Directed by Curtis Hanson, it's an hour-and-a-half story stretched to over two hours while feeling like it's three.
It has also been dramatically mismarketed, as it tries to convince potential ticket buyers that it's something of a romantic comedy, which it almost never is. Still, even though it is an abysmal failure as a romance or a comedy, it does work, in a pedestrian sort of way, as a poker movie. Although we've all seen better poker movies, LUCKY YOU should have significant appeal to people whose TiVo is filled with poker contests. But for those viewers not steeped in the nuances of modern day poker strategy and terminology, the movie's best parts may be completely baffling.
At the heart of the story is a battle to the death, figuratively, not literally, between a pair of father and son gamblers who have issues -- lots of issues -- between them. Huck Cheever (Eric Bana, TROY) is known as "a blaster," a player so obsessed with making the big, splashy bet that he usually loses it all after turning a trivial amount of money into a small fortune.
The only player Huck can never beat is L. C. (Robert Duvall), his father and his nemesis. A wealthy, 2-time winner of the World Championship of Poker, L. C. knows how to keep his winnings, a skill that Huck appears constitutionally incapable of learning. Whenever Huck gets way ahead, he has to keep playing until his pot goes up in flames because of a bet that was too bold. The upshot of this is that Huck lives in a house, owned by the bank, which has no furniture whatsoever. The movie's ongoing joke is that he keeps having to hock his mother's wedding ring for inconsequential amounts of money in order to stake himself with enough cash for him to begin to dig his way out of his latest financial hole.
Completely wasted in a throwaway part as Huck's on-and-off girlfriend Billie, Drew Barrymore was hired for the sole purpose of tricking potential audience members into thinking that LUCKY YOU is a romantic comedy. The script gives Barrymore almost nothing to do, which is exactly she does.
I must admit that I do have a passing interest in poker, so I did enjoy the poker sequences. But -- Good God! -- who thought up the film's ridiculous ending twist? It is the sort of thing that only happens in the movies.
LUCKY YOU runs a very long 2:05. It is rated PG-13 for "some language and sexual humor" and would be acceptable for kids around 8 and up.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, May 4, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
