Huck’s talent in poker stems from his compulsive nature, and his ability to smooth talk just about anyone. As could be expected, this behavior takes a serious toll on his love life. Women seem to think that he is untrustworthy, and his choice of profession seems even further ethically questionable.
One such woman is Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore). They meet relatively randomly one day, and within a short span of time Billie decides that Huck is out for himself and nobody else. The thing that makes Billie different from all the other girls is that she wants to help. Ultimately, she tries to help Huck face his problems and fix his life, only to find that he must face his demons alone.
This movie is entertaining, but it isn’t something that you would want to watch if you were looking for something exciting and fast-paced. The movie revolves around poker, which involves lots of silent stares and subtle gestures, so it is only suiting that lots of these devices are used to tell the story.
Robert Duvall is predictably fantastic in this movie—at over 75 years of age, he still manages to steal every scene he’s in. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Eric Bana.
I generally like Eric Bana. He has a subtle way of portraying his characters, and his eyes do a lot of the talking. What I’m trying to say is, he really is a good actor; I just don’t think this was the role for him. The character of Huck is a smooth-talking, somewhat cocky guy, and I just have trouble buying into the character when Eric Bana is playing him.
The DVD
Lucky You comes as a single DVD in a standard case. The cover art is subtly attractive, with a photo of Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore on the top half, and a scene of the Las Vegas strip and what is assumed to be a nice poker hand on the bottom half.
The main menu is kind of bland. It literally re-uses the imagery from the DVD case, and plays some guitar music in the background. It isn’t unattractive, but it definitely isn’t fresh or original, either.
Video is presented in widescreen format. Colors look very natural, and the images are consistently crisp and nicely lit. It’s rare to see a movie based in Vegas that looks so true-to-life; most gambling movies are highly stylized (think Ocean’s Eleven), and they don’t portray casinos in a realistic way.
Audio comes in the form of Dolby 5.1 surround in English, French and Spanish. The surround doesn’t necessarily add much to the movie, since most of the audio is dialogue, but it has its moments—especially during the poker tournament, when you can hear the voices of the onlookers coming from every direction.
Special Features
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the special features on this DVD are actually pretty nice, even though there are only three to choose from. The first, entitled “The Players at the Table,” gives a behind the scenes look at the professional poker players who were used in the movie, to lend a sense of realism to the poker games.
Another featurette, entitled “The Reel Deel – The Time and Place of Lucky You,” takes a look at what the crew did to make the movie seem like it actually took place in Las Vegas in 2003. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to make a movie that supposedly only took place four years ago, but there was a lot of effort put into making sure that the movie felt authentic.
The final “feature” that is included on this DVD is a collection of five deleted scenes, that didn’t make it into the final cut. There is no commentary option, so you pretty much just have to watch the scenes and figure out for yourself why they didn’t make it.
Overall
This movie had a lot of potential, but I just don’t feel like it delivered. Please don’t take this to mean that the movie is bad, because it really isn’t. It is charming, and it has its good moments, but it just didn’t captivate me the way I would have liked. My recommendation would be to rent this movie before you drop $20 on it, just to make sure it’s what you expect.
Overall: 6.0