Review

Review Date: 6-May-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

Lucky You (2007)

The bad news is, I can't even work up enough disgust towards "Lucky You" to thrash it properly and derive some fun from it after all. This movie is so dull it's almost anesthetizing. Director Curtis Hanson has shown skill before, but here he merely wastes celluloid (and viewers' time) on a whole lot of nothing. What was it that he and Eric Roth saw in their script that didn't make it to the screen? The story itself is vacuous, so I can only assume they were swayed by a personal and blinding affection for poker.

"Lucky You" takes place not in the seedy den of "Leaving Las Vegas" or the glamorous mecca of "Ocean's Eleven," but in a realistic city where the Strip holds a corner office for the hardworking professional gambler. Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) is one such professional, having inherited the calling from his estranged father L.C. Cheever (Robert Duvall). Huck appears to do all right, although he suffers the vicissitudes of a life spent losing and winning cash and commits the occasional theft to support his career. He has a reputation as a man who plays fast and loose with women as well, so it is with some trepidation that a pretty lounge singer new to town (Drew Barrymore) lays a wager on him as a lover.

The paper-thin plot inches along on the supposition that Huck needs to learn something important, which may or may not help him win the World Series of Poker, and that either his father or his girlfriend will help him find the way. It's not entirely clear what the needed lesson is, however, because Huck, like all the characters, has no personality. Ought he to take more risk or less? Should he become less selfish for his job or his happiness? Or does he just gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em? After an eternity of tedious poker games against opponents we're supposed to dislike because they're funny-looking, the movie doesn't resolve much or even explain what needed to be resolved. I'm guessing from some muffled clues that Huck does learn his lesson in the end, but as a moviegoer, I don't feel so lucky.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.