Forget the rumors of oxygenated air circulating through Vegas’ casinos. There was a time when sitting at gaming tables meant breathing in a plume of nicotine and stress sweat.
“Lucky You,” starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall, exudes that stale-air quality. And that could not have been the old-school vibe the typically savvy Curtis Hanson was hoping for in his gambling drama-romance set on the eve of the 2003 World Series of Poker.
Huck Cheever is a likable, good- looking denizen of Las Vegas. The ’50s-style house he grew up in is now a barren shell with an empty kidney-shaped pool in the backyard. He may be a professional gambler, but that doesn’t mean he’s solvent.
As Huck works at a pawn shop and then lower-end tables to build his stake for the tournament, his father, L.C., arrives to compete. Having won the tourney twice, L.C. is a legend. And Duvall plays him with a squint and an edge underpinned by a pained wisdom.
Barrymore’s aspiring singer Billie Offer is the short side of this isosceles triangle about relationships that require deceit and those that demand candor – and what happens when a guy hasn’t learned the difference.
At the tables, L.C. Cheever tweaks his son by calling him Huckleberry. Friends sometimes greet the leather- jacket-wearing Huck as “Huckster.”
Huck’s a “blaster,” the sort of guy who goes for broke at the table when prudence would better serve his pile of chips.
“Lucky You” is a blaster, too. While this tendency makes the showdowns at the tables more intriguing, it doesn’t serve the movie well.
Co-written by Hanson and Eric Roth, “Lucky You” lingers at the poker tables, then races through the romance.
Billie and Huck meet cute at a party where wagers are being made on a volleyball game. Later they share a moment above the Strip. Liza Minnelli’s “Maybe This Time” can be heard in the background. This is but one instance where music is called upon to create an intimacy the script hasn’t.
Roth co-wrote “Munich,” which also starred Bana. That movie was talkative – for good reason: Complex ideological viewpoints needed voicing in the midst of volatile action.
Poker aficionados could argue that the game of Texas Hold’em deserves its own gravity. But Huck’s riffs on folds, holds and tells sound pedantic.
One of the challenges here is keeping a compulsive gambler likable. Ladies: If on the first night a guy “borrows” some money, do you really agree to a second night?
The movie skirts the potentially pathological by using truly compulsive bettors (not the poker players, mind you) as schlubs and lunatic geeks. One acquaintance needs a C-cup man-bra thanks to a bet.
“Lucky You” has been marketed like a chick flick. But its really a father-son drama in which women are dispensers of wisdom and forgiveness.
Barrymore relies on her cute reflexes for a supporting role gussied up as a lead. Debra Messing plays her sister, around just enough to warn Billie that some people “don’t want to be fixed” and then chide Huck for his emotional tautness.
“Lucky You” has moments that hint at cards not played.
“You’re the only man I don’t mind losing to,” says an old-timer skinned by L.C. The camera stays on his face as it sours.
Jean Smart impresses as one of the few female high-stakes players. Her quiet expressions and under-the- breath observations suggest a history with L.C. beyond the gaming green.
In a treat of a cameo, Robert Downey Jr. does what comes as naturally to him as it does Duvall. He owns every bit of the onscreen real estate.
Sure, poker has an avid TV following. But there’s another reason Hollywood is taken with gambling. People wager a load on the surprisingly unsure thing of a major motion picture.
No doubt this is why the guy who stakes Huck the $10,000 he needs has the look of a nebbishy bean counter and the hungry enthusiasm of a movie producer.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
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“Lucky You”
PG-13 for some language and sexual humor|2 hours, 15 minutes|DRAMA ROMANCE|Directed by Curtis Hanson; written by Hanson and Eric Roth; photography by Peter Deming; starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, Robert Duvall, Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Charles Martin Smith, Jean Smart. |Opens today at area theaters
