Lucky You

By: Art

Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, Debra Messing, Robert Duvall, Charles Martin Smith, Jean Smart
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
 
When one undertakes the review of a movie starring Drew Barrymore, the first, and oft most difficult task is to avoid comparing her performance in said film to many of the other similar roles she has invariably played.

Her role as Billie Offer in Lucky You, the 2007 movie by Curtis Hanson, who is most famous for L.A Confidential and 8 Mile, is remarkably similar to her role as Sophie Fisher in Music and Lyrics, which was the same as her role as Julia in The Wedding Singer, which was little more than a modern version of her role as Danielle De Barbarac in Ever After.

That aside, it must be said that Eric Bana turns in a barely passable effort in this so-called romantic comedy, as the emotionally unbalanced Huck Cheever, a man raised on Texas Hold ‘Em poker by a distant father played effortlessly by Robert Duvall.  One wonders if Duvall mentally left his trailer while producing this performance.

Huck goes through life trying to live up to the gambling skills of his father, remaining blissfully unaware that he is ultimately betting with his own ethics. Along the way, he falls for Billie, but does not realize the sacrifice required of love until it’s too late.

Lucky You is hardly a Noir classic. It’s barely a descent rom-com. What it is – in poker terms – is a bluff. It’s a bland movie without real depth. It's essentially a movie that does nothing to build character, and even less to establish a storyline. Yet it still tries to impart some lessons about the morality of a generation raised on World Championship Poker. The only problem is that it’s hard to decipher just what those lessons – or the point of the movie – are.

What we’re left with is a lukewarm cinematic experience that never lives up the occasional potential.
 
Verbatim:
Billie Offer: “You know what I think? I think that everyone's just trying not to be lonely.”

In a word: Folded