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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
64
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69
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68
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54
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76
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xx
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50
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84
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41
Cthulhu
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
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26
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28
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71
Frost/Nixon
82
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43
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73
Girl Cut in Two, A
54
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84
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31
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26
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47
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72
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70
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40
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78
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63
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27
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82
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xx
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xx
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89
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84
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51
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34
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xx
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40
Other End of the Line, The
34
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75
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77
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82
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56
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32
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53
RocknRolla
57
Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
57
Special
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
71
Frost/Nixon
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Hunger
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Black Balloon, The
xx
Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx
Local Color
xx
Nobel Son
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Lucky Ones, The
Roadside Attractions
 |
|
MPAA RATING: R for language and some sexual content
Starring
Rachel McAdams,
Tim Robbins,
Michael Pena,
Molly Hagan,
Mark L. Young,
Howard Platt,
Arden Myrin,
and
Coburn Goss
T.K. Poole, Colee Dunn and Fred Cheever arrive in New York from Germany only to find their connecting flights canceled due to a power outage. Anxious to get to their respective destinations, they agree to share a rented minivan to suburban St. Louis where Cheever is to reunite with his wife and teenage son. From there, the other two plan to fly to Las Vegas where the macho T.K. wants to make an important stop before seeing his fiancee and the tough yet naive Colee plans to pay a visit to a fallen fellow-soldier's family. But when Cheever's homecoming turns out to be a far cry from what he anticipated, the trio's one-day drive expands into an impromptu cross-country marathon. (Roadside Attractions)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Neil Burger
Dirk Wittenborn
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Neil Burger
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: September 26, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
113 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This formula is fraught with pitfalls, but the characters and the actors redeem it with a surprising emotional impact.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
This is more than the story of soldiers grappling with stress and doubt as they reenter the "normal" flow of domestic life. It's about strangers bonding, about friendship and discovery, about the comedy and tragedy of the human experience.
75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
This movie has its own emotional sorcery. In a raw, humorous way, it grasps how hope and desperation spur magical thinking and, sometimes, real magic.
70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
I'd hate to guess whether most Americans know, any more than these fictional partygoers, what soldiers go through in Iraq. But if the market for movies about the war is any indication, they don't want to.
70
The New York Times
Laura Kern
Because the lead actors work so well together, adding depth and levels of vulnerability to fairly underwritten roles, the emotional consequences of the sense of displacement these "lucky" characters -- lucky to be alive, lucky to have met one another -- must deal with always ring true.
67
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The Lucky Ones isn't dull, and the actors do quite nicely, especially McAdams, who's feisty, gorgeous, and as mercurial as a mood ring.
67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Like its lead characters, Lucky is wounded, lost, and impractical, but it has a messy, winning humanity and an agreeably leisurely pace that almost redeems it.
63
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
As close as a movie about three Iraq war soldiers should come to mediocre TV comedy.
63
Premiere
Stuart Levine
While the journey is somewhat bumpy and awfully contrived at times, the characters making the trek are ones we don't mind being cooped with for long stretches of highway.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The weakest aspect of The Lucky Ones is by far the conclusion, which is flat and contrived.
63
TV Guide
Ken Fox
An entertaining road movie with a topical point: The three passengers on this cross-country trip are U.S. soldiers who've just returned from Iraq.
63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Though the lead performances are uniformly good, the film seems hazy in its focus from the start. Many of the scenes seem to simply meander.
58
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
It's not a political film, but it's also not a bland recitation of homilies about the honor of serving one's country. It's a jokey road movie, in which three soldiers heading home from Iraq are forced into a cross-country van ride together.
55
NPR
Bob Mondello
There's something centrally pat and predictable about the coincidence-laden story, and by the time they get to Vegas, The Lucky Ones has been all but done in by a surfeit of serendipity.
50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The film itself, which has everything from erection jokes to a computer-generated tornado, comes down to a battle between the interpreters and a screenplay riddled with convenience, cliche and well-meaning contrivance.
50
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
More than a story about Iraq war veterans, The Lucky Ones is a movie about carefully considering one's options.
50
The Hollywood Reporter
Sura Wood
This moderately engaging, offbeat film requires a patience that audiences haven't demonstrated recently for stories concerning the fate of soldiers at home or abroad.
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Burger is so respectful of the trio that he never gets under their skin. Apart from the generosity of strangers who pay tribute to the soldiers with little acts of kindness, you get the same generic observations of any road movie.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
If this is meant to look fresh while still being sensitive, it doesn't and it isn't.
50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
About the only thing I like about this movie is its shaggy, relatively apolitical stance. Instead of setting itself up as a brief for or against the Iraq war, it just moseys along without much on its mind except how to connect the dots in the plot.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
As the film meanders, the powerful moments barely outnumber the ridiculous. And another excellent performance from McAdams isn't quite good enough to mask the distractions.
40
Variety
Todd McCarthy
It's hard to find the genuine heartfelt moments in The Lucky Ones.
40
Village Voice
Vadim Rizov
Its hopelessly schematic road-trip arc (bond-fight-reconcile-repeat) grows increasingly tedious.
30
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Could be filed under "wacky misfire."
25
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Cheap, ignorant, tone-deaf and condescending, but what's strangest about it is that it actually thinks it's pro-soldier even as it portrays vets home on leave as foolish (Rachel McAdams), desperate (Tim Robbins) and dishonorable (Michael Pena) while playing all three situations for laughs.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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