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Lucky You
EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Eric Roth (also story)
Curtis Hanson
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 4, 2007
DVD: September 18, 2007
Running Time: 124 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some language and sexual humor
Starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, Robert Duvall, Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Jean Smart, Kelvin Han Yee, and Charles Martin Smith
This romantic drama set in Vegas pairs Drew Barrymore as an aspiring young singer and Eric Bana as a high-stakes poker player.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 8 Mile In Her Shoes L.A. Confidential Losin' It Wonder Boys
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The compelling and interesting aspect of Lucky You is not so much the compulsion that drives the main character but the way in which he interacts with those around him. The movie isn't a downer, but neither does it end with all loose ends nicely tied off. In this case, redemption does not equate with salvation.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A relaxed-looking expert piece that immerses us in another world. At the end, Hanson has a bonus. He and his producers hired Bob Dylan for the Oscar-winning "Things Have Changed" in "Wonder Boys," and Hanson brings Dylan back here, for a folky, bluesy number called "Huck's Tune."
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
At its best it's refreshingly offhanded. It's a hit-and-miss movie that's worth seeing for the hits.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Always good with actors, Hanson brings out a beaten-down charm in Bana that works nicely against the hotheaded authority the actor shows in the gambling scenes, while Duvall is, like the veteran card shark he plays, a master of subtle gestures. The low card here is Barrymore, somewhat awkwardly shoehorned into this boys' club to provide some romantic relief.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Even if you think you know where Lucky You is headed, there's something pleasurable about watching it unfold, maybe chiefly because Hanson isn't trying too hard.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Not in any sense a great movie, a masterpiece that future generations will want to rediscover. But it is a solid, well-made, generally gripping and intelligent movie -- and how many of those have lately been made in America?
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's the first Hanson movie in a decade that doesn't quite click into place.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Starts off promisingly, then grows as lifeless as a poker face.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Playing the character with this much girlish innocence is risky. Barrymore can seem dumb, but as Lucky You unfolds, we realize that the character is just a device to bring viewers into the parallel universe of poker.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Like "The Hustler," this absorbing Las Vegas story about a professional poker player (Eric Bana) uses gambling to tell a tale of moral regeneration. But Bana can't carry a picture like Paul Newman, and poker proves less photogenic than pool.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Nathan
A 'realistic' Vegas movie that will set no-one's soul on fire, but is further proof that Hanson can lend his talents to any style of movie.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The result is that most of the picture plays out as a series of scenes in which our hero sits there, gets angry and loses all his money.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Even the title is off. I haven't heard an honest "Lucky You" since I was in sixth grade. For most people it registers as a sneer.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Curiously lifeless, Lucky You feels like poker without stakes; it goes through the motions with nothing to play for.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
If you're not a rabid fan of Texas hold 'em -- the poker phenomenon that swept the country a couple of years ago but is hardly cutting edge now -- you might want to step quickly away from Lucky You.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
I watched this movie thinking that it used the idea of taking a chance on cards as a metaphor for taking a chance on love. I was dead wrong.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
If anyone could take a movie about a bunch of jerks who play poker and make it interesting, it should be Curtis Hanson. Or rather, it should have been.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Even though it is sometimes dull and generally thin, there is something winning about the movie's genial lack of ambition.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Poker has proven itself a popular spectator sport on television -- at least in the short run -- but as scripted drama, where you can pretty much guess the winner of a given hand, it's dull, dull, dull.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Had Lucky You played strictly as a father-son drama set against the background of competitive Texas Hold 'Em, it would've been a much better movie based on the strength of Hanson's direction and Duvall's performance alone. But no, somewhere along the line they had to make this a romance, and that's the movie's fatal flaw.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Perhaps this is just a bad performance by Bana; he's not shown me anything yet. But there's a more basic problem. If money is just a way of keeping score, and Huck doesn't care whether he's flush or busted, why should we?
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Really, all this movie is about is the joy of checks, calls, folds, rivers, and the acquired thrill of knowing what those words mean.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Lucky You is redeemed slightly by the presence of Duvall as Huck's father, poker legend L.C. Cheever, who clearly spent more time being Huck's teacher than his dad. Their inevitable face-off at the final table of the World Poker Championship has just enough Oedipal overtones to give the movie a little heft.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
So what's Hanson exploring this time? His boring side, apparently.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
This spring, boredom has a new name: Lucky You. In the poker flick, an announcer calling a climactic poker match uses a Texas hold 'em term frequently, saying, "And the flop. And the flop. And the flop." This movie reviews itself.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it a6:
Since the weakest part of "Lucky You" is the romance between Huck(Eric Bana) and Billie(Drew Barrymore), it's of some small consolation that we're not sure if the aspiring lounge singer truly loves the high-stakes poker player. Their final scene together might be more subversive than it plays. Huck is so nonchalant about money, he assumes that everybody(including his girlfriend) is the same way. Huck never seems too keyed up about winning two-and-a-half-million dollars, so why should we? Since Robert Duvall is a better actor than Bana(Are we all in agreement on this one, folks?), why not tell the story from his perspective? If the filmmaker pared him up with Michelle(Jean Smart), then maybe we'd have a livelier film. If chess can be made to look exciting(Steven Zallian's "Searching for Bobby Fischer"), poker should be a breeze; especially if the sport is photographed by a guy who convinced us that Eminem could act. Maybe the filmmaker intentionally drained the fun out of poker to reflect how the sport has now become so respectable, it lost that outlaw spirit somewhere along the way from its roots in the backrooms of Vegas to the bland environs of our living rooms(thanks to ESPN). Huck seems depressed. We're depressed. "Lucky You" needed a more colorful protagonist.
Jared B. gave it a10:
I enjoyed the movie very much. It had a lot of Poker in it but then again I like poker so that could be the main reason I liked it. My advice to would be if u hate poker don't watch the movie.
Damon C. gave it a1:
Turgid, lifeless, flat, boring ... what else can I add? I'd probably derive more joy watching paint dry, or for that matter, interminable re-runs of real poker championships on ESPN. My advice - fold quickly and run the heck out of the theater. Otherwise this movie will slaughter you at the turn or the river.
Tony M. gave it a7:
I don't think I believed it, but I liked it. I enjoy watching poker on cable, but Lucky You had too much poker -- some hands dragged. Not good for drama.
Mark B. gave it a4:
Compulsive drinking, drugging and gambling are all addictions, but there are reasons why the first two have provided the bases for many more memorable movies than the third. Texas Hold 'Em junkies and Bravo-TV programmers will contest this, but images of poker-faced cardsharps betting the farm on one final hand just don't carry the visual punch of, say, Ray Milland walking a hundred blocks trying to hock his typewriter to buy booze, or Jack Lemmon demolishing his father-in-law's greenhouse in search of a hidden bottle. In Lucky You, Eric Bana (Hulk, Munich) is playing an obvious victim of gambling addiction (when you've gambled away all your furniture and bad guys with big muscles drop in at all hours to throw you into an empty pool, how can you NOT be?) but cowriter/ director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) deals with this issue by NOT dealing with it. By disingenuously pretending there's no problem at all, Lucky You willfully tosses aside some potentially intriguing dark material (which Hanson of all people should've been more than able to handle), instead pulling laborious triple duty as a father-son drama, a Big Game movie and a romcom. (Gee. Haven't we seen ENOUGH examples of each of those lately?) Since I know little about poker and care less, I'll give this a benefit-of-the-doubt yellow score, but Lucky You is truly wretched, a prime example of one of those inexplicable misfires that, for reasons that could range from directorial egomania to rampant studio interference with all stops in between, inevitably litters virtually every good writer-director's resume. Performances are wildly uneven, with Bana managing to be so colorless that I actually forgot what he sounded like when watching scenes he wasn't in, Robert Duvall delivering a surprisingly third-rate rehash of some of his past great performances as Bana's dad (himself a champion poker player) and Horatio Sanz, one of Saturday Night Live's most annoying and unfunny co-stars ever playing one of Bana's gambling buddies and NOT improving with age. On the other hand, Jean Smart (of TV's Designing Women), though almost totally wasted (most of her dialogue seems to have been edited out of the final cut with a chainsaw) as another contender, still gets in a few piquant reaction shots, while Charles Martin Smith, here as in American Graffiti and The Untouchables, cements his reputation as one of those wonderful character actors that's always a joy to see. Drew Barrymore is as charming and irresistable here as she was in 2007's earlier Music & Lyrics, even though here she's more of an artificial appendage than a vital organ. (And three cheers, for once, to People magazine for, in choosing her as the Most Beautiful Woman of 2007, opting for natural warmth and sweetness over Botox, bulimia and silicone!) Unfortunately, Hanson and his make-up/ hair crew make the fairly jaw-dropping decision of darkening Barrymore's hair, which carries the side effect of making her and Bana look like brother and sister, which in turn caused me to while away much of the movie's running time dredging up every unfair, tasteless joke I could think of involving U. S. states with large backwoods populations. (When you're watching a movie that climaxes with a poker tournament that you can accurately predict the winner of as soon as all the competitors take their seats, you gotta do SOMETHING to stay awake!) Lucky You has been on the Warner Bros. shelf for about two years, and when after much procrastination they finally decided to dribble it out on the same opening weekend as Spider-Man 3 (otherwise known as the "Throw The Bunny Rabbit Directly In The Path Of The Speeding Train" strategy) so they'd have an instant excuse for the inevitable box office slaughter to follow, I originally saw this marketing ploy as corporate cowardice at its worst. Now, having actually SEEN the movie in question, I have to do a 180-degree turnaround and commend Warner Bros. for performing what can best be described as an extremely compassionate mercy killing.
