Lucky You: Critic Reviews

Lucky you, I've run out of topical analogies for now, except for this: A decent movie just wasn't in the cards.

Even though Lucky You is sometimes dull and generally thin, there is something winning about the movie's genial lack of ambition.

In the past, poker-playing in the movies was likely to be something exciting but dangerous, not something to be dwelt on technically, and analogous to other criminal and self-destructive activities in the storyline.

Dispassionate and dull despite some strong performances, Lucky You just feels played out.

A mixed-up romantic sports comedy of sorts set in the Vegas poker world.

Lucky You is in the mold of The Hustler and The Cincinnati Kid. But while there is conflict, there is no tension, and while there is plenty of gamesmanship, there is no suspense.

In the end, Lucky You lays out poker as a sterile corporate undertaking. For lovers of the game and lovers of the cinema, it's far from a safe bet.

Lucky You lingers at the poker tables, then races through the romance.

Most of Lucky You, starting with the title, is ordinary or outright awful. Moviemakers, it seems, cannot bluff their way to success.

A solid piece of mainstream storytelling that works as a character study and a love story, even if you don't know a gut-shot straight draw from a nut flush.

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.

Like The Hustler, this absorbing Las Vegas story about a professional poker player (Eric Bana) uses gambling to tell a tale of moral regeneration.

Best known for L.A. Confidential and 8 Mile, Hanson is an accomplished filmmaker. But you wouldn't know it from this unfocused movie that shows us cardsharps of an unusually dull variety.

Lucky You is a penny-ante movie about high-stakes Las Vegas poker. It's a tepid and flavorless effort despite a notable cast and a generally strong director.

The deal was wrong right from the beginning on Lucky You.

This movie has so little to it that you begin to understand why they packed it with so much poker: They had to put something on the screen. But even die-hard Hold'em fans will leave wishing for more.

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.

After several delayed release dates, Warner Bros. finally lays down its cards with Lucky You, and it's a weak hand.

Staying home and playing solitaire would be two levels more interesting than watching this movie, which is directed, or rather embalmed, by L.A. Confidential man Curtis Hanson.

The whole house of cards collapses into an agreeable sort of predictability.

Made a couple of years ago, Curtis Hanson's Oedipally fraught Vegas dud is only now being unceremoniously dumped for what will certainly be a heartbeat of theatrical life.

From the opening scene, the movie is flatter than week-old beer.

Even if you think you know where Lucky You is headed, there's something pleasurable about watching it unfold.

Lucky You isn't Hanson's best movie but it's a respectable effort and deserves more of a chance to be seen than the one it's getting.