Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 141
Fresh: 41 | Rotten: 100
Lucky You tries to combine a romantic story with the high-stakes world of poker, but comes up with an empty hand.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 35
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 26
Lucky You tries to combine a romantic story with the high-stakes world of poker, but comes up with an empty hand.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 204,385
A professional poker player whose astounding luck at the table fails to translate into his lonesome love life attempts to win the World Series of Poker while simultaneously earning the affections of a beautiful Las Vegas singer in a high-stakes emotional drama from L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson and Munich screenwriter Eric Roth. When his personal problems threaten to distract him from what could be his biggest win ever, seasoned poker pro Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) finds comfort in the
May 1, 2007 Wide
Sep 18, 2007
$5.7M
Warner Bros. Pictures
All Critics (143) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (103) | DVD (14)
Hanson and Roth shuffle the two sides of the movie, the poker tournament and the love affair, with a Howard Hawksian feel for casual professionalism.
Lucky You is hardly Mr. Hanson's strongest effort, but it does contain many of his saving graces: a warm regard for his characters, an unhurried pace for his narrative and a grown-up sense of morality.
It's a ponderous, anemic bore about how to play poker that exploits the trendy gambling fever that is all the rage on the Internet and cable TV, but doesn't have enough energy to keep the most catatonic tournament-poker addict awake.
Most of Lucky You, starting with the title, is ordinary or outright awful. Moviemakers, it seems, cannot bluff their way to success.
Even if you think you know where Lucky You is headed, there's something pleasurable about watching it unfold.
Dispassionate and dull despite some strong performances, Lucky You just feels played out.
Don't bet on Barrymore's lackluster poker rom-com.
Curtis Hanson's film concerns itself with wage-makers' addictive pathological itch, desperate hustles and poker's cult of very strange personalities. Its most striking "Tin Cup" kinship: Vindication and victory don't always arrive together.
I don't think I believed the movie Lucky You, but I sort of enjoyed it. A caveat: I enjoy watching poker on ESPN. If you don't, this movie will bore you.
Since Lucky You overdid the poker cliches to death, let me end with one of my favorites: 'You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em.' It seems this film never learned that lesson.
Better to fold 'em than to spend time watching Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore go literally nowhere.
Personally, I think this is one of those misunderstood films that never got a fair shake. DVD often corrects such oversights, and my hope is that Lucky You will finally find the appreciative audience it deserves.
Lucky You undoes what Rounders did right.
...not really a bad film, just a sweetly mediocre one.
...a well-intentioned romantic-gambling film that misses the mark by providing little we haven't seen before and better.
As soon as it has to face the real world, and deal with "emotions," it goes completely slack.
The disc's extras include a behind the scenes featurette focusing on the real poker players who appear in the movie.
This was movie was so boring. Long scenes just watching people play poker... not the most enthralling set up for a movie. I mainly stuck through this one because I do like Drew Barrymore and have enjoyed most of her movies. She's sweet in this as always, but it's not enough to make for interesting viewing. To me,
January 17, 2008Super Reviewer
Enjoyable enough for poker fans, but overall, too many other stupid things going on. It solidified my conviction that Drew Barrymore should stick to strictly comedic roles.
September 30, 2007
Super Reviewer
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