Lucky you was unlucky for me. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. Now, add some pretty pictures of Las Vegas and lots of poker shots and lingo and then you get LUCKY YOU. To complete this utter waste of time, add a poker faced (had to do it) Eric Bana (Huck), as a hot-shot, cocky, poker/semi-con man, a lack-luster Drew Barrymore (Billie) who should be told not to sing anymore, and a wasted cast of thousands; okay, maybe not thousands but enough to make a few minutes of this movie palatable. Robert Duvall, also not his finest work, as Huck's father, the veteran poker king who is the target that Huck is aiming at when he plays. Unless you really, really like poker, don't see this movie. The first attempt at a plot is to bring an estranged father and son back together (through the highly therapeutic game of poker). The second attempt at a plot is the romance/con between Huck and Billie. After watching Eric Bana try to portray this slick character, I couldn't tell if he had to repress his emotion because he plays poker and so he always hides his "tells" or if it was simply bad acting. I'll bet you know which it was. His lack of a pulse, or the plot, or the burdensome, unnecessarily extended poker playing sequences did nothing to promote a romantic storyline between Huck and Billie. The writing was halfway decent until you hear one too many bumper sticker lines: "The key is watching and understanding", "Some people don't want to be fixed", Hustle- 10, commitment -0"... enough already. There is a handful of outstanding actors who were given mere seconds of screen time
when they could have made this movie more interesting. Robert Downey Jr. is a 1-900 con artist and we see him for, maybe 4 minutes. Jean Smart is the token woman poker player, who is beautiful and self assured on screen and at the poker table. There were great long shots and shots of the back of her head. Horatio Sanz, a cast member on Saturday Night Live, plays a hilarious compulsive gambler, Ready Eddie, who bets a guy if he can live in the bathroom of one of the casinos for a month and sends Huck on an amusing sequence on another bet. Debra Messing plays Billie's sister and has maybe 6 minutes of screen time. A total waste of talent and terrible miscasting in the leading roles. I have a HUGE crush on Robert Downey Jr., and to toss him away so carelessly hurt more than losing your savings on a drunken Vegas road-trip. This film was directed by Curtis Hanson who brought us 8 Mile, In Her Shoes and LA Confidential among other wonderful films. Maybe he bet he could make this film work. He lost. Rating: Unless you REALLY like poker and long movies, skip this one.
