Lucky You

Remember Swingers? 'You're money, baby!' Well Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) is so not money, he's flat broke. And that may as well stand for Lucky You, too. Curtis Hanson's film has been sitting on the shelf for some time now, and was finally released in the US the same week as Spider-man 3 (not even the incredible hulk would relish that fight). Not surprisingly it bombed.

Although he's a chronic gambler and a card sharp, Huck only cares about money in so much as it buys him a seat at the table. That's just as well. Although he's a great poker player, he's a 'blaster'; he plays from the gut not the rulebook, and he has the apartment to match (his furniture is all in hock).

We first see him trying to pawn a camera, a beautifully written scene with a lovely shrewd performance by Phyllis Somerville (Little Children) as the pawnbroker' Huck's working it from every angle, but she's not budging on the price. He winds up getting another buck and a half for his most precious possession, his mother's wedding ring. It's enough of a stake to get back in the game, at least temporarily.

He wins, he blasts, he busts. Then he meets Billie (Drew Barrymore), an aspiring lounge singer who's sweet and cute and has never played cards in her life. He wins, he blasts, he 'borrows' her wallet. Amazingly, she gives him a second chance. But with the World Series of Poker just around the corner, and Huck's father, two-time WSP winner LC Cheever (Robert Duvall) back in town, there isn't much time for him to pull his act together.

Curtis Hanson is one of the good guys. He worked himself into a bankable position by crafting expert genre movies like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild. Parlayed that into backing for the risky LA Confidential (cutting his own fee to get it made), and then had a good stab at adapting Michael Chabon's quirky, very literary Wonder Boys, an underrated film that never really found its audience. 8 Mile was next, and further proof of his versatility. (It's not that I don't have an opinion on his last film, In Her Shoes, just that I never got around to seeing it!)

Given Hanson's track record, the credits of co-writer Eric Roth (which include The Good Shepherd, Forrest Gump, The Insider and Munich) and Huck's own erratic progress, it's perplexing how flat Lucky You turns out to be.

Hanson is self-confessed poker nut, and the film is probably the most accurate representation of tournament poker the movies have given us. It's set in 2003, the year television introduced the hole-card camera and a complete outsider, the felicitously-named Chris Moneymaker went on to win the series (a real-life fairytale that doesn't figure here). Several big time professional poker players also contribute cameos.

That's not to say aficionados won't quibble at some of the dramatic devices he's allowed himself, but non-poker fans may wish for more poetic license, not less. The games are surprisingly short of excitement and drama, and there are a lot of them.

The love story is even more tepid. Billie seems like a nice girl, but that's all she brings to the party.

But the real problem is Eric Bana. The character is written as quickwitted, compulsive, and still hung up on anger at his old man. What he requires is charm to soften the pill and explain Billie's attraction to him, and this is what Bana fails to supply.

The movie does have compensations. The supporting cast is strong, even if Debra Messing and Robert Downey Jr are basically wasted (I'd have loved to have seen Downey playing Huck). Predictably enough Robert Duvall walks away with every scene he's in; he's such a rough, unapologetic actor. Hanson has talked about how he was interested to explore how the qualities that make you a good poker playing (hiding your emotions and so on) are the opposite attributes you need to be a good father. Maybe he should have made the movie about this bad dad instead.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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