Lucky You (2007)

A hotshot poker player tries to win a tournament in Vegas, but is fighting a losing battle with his personal problems.

Director:

Curtis Hanson

Writers:

Eric Roth (screenplay), Curtis Hanson (screenplay),

Stars:

Phyllis Somerville, Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Phyllis Somerville	...	Pawnbroker
Eric Bana	...	Huck Cheever
Horatio Sanz	...	Ready Eddie
Drew Barrymore	...	Billie Offer
Joey Kern	...	Billie's Admirer
Debra Messing	...	Suzanne Offer
Delaine Yates	...	Ginger
Mykel Shannon Jenkins	...	Gary
Robert Duvall	...	L. C. Cheever
Charles Martin Smith	...	Roy Durucher
Robert Downey Jr.	...	Telephone Jack
Saverio Guerra	...	Lester
Danny Hoch	...	Bobby Basketball
Kenny Cau	...	Chinese Restaurant Waiter
Kelvin Han Yee	...	Chico Banh

Storyline

In Las Vegas, Huck Cheever is a poker player, brilliant but also prone to let emotion take over. It's the week of the poker world series, and Huck must come up with the $10,000 entry fee, which he wins, loses, borrows, and loses - and even steals part of from Billie Offer, an earnest young woman who's new in town and who catches Huck's eye. By the time the tournament starts, Huck owes everyone. Complicating things is the arrival of Huck's father, whom Huck detests for having left his mother, a champion player in town to win. Can Huck learn to play poker the way he lives and to live the way he plays poker? Or is his only flush the sound of his life going down the toilet?

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Plot Keywords:

poker | poker player | losing | pawnshop | volleyball | 

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Taglines:

Take a chance.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Sport

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some language and sexual humor

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros [fr] Warner Bros. [us]

Country:

USA Germany Australia

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

4 May 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bem-vindo ao Jogo

Filming Locations:

Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£56,346 (UK) (22 June 2007)

Gross:

$5,755,286 (USA) (29 June 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures, Deuce Three Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

124 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When a hand of a pair of tens and a pair of fours is referred to as a Broderick Crawford, it was because actor Crawford frequently used the code "10-4" to end radio messages on his popular syndicated TV show, "Highway Patrol.'

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Goofs

In the Bellagio poker room scene immediately after 'Huck Cheever' applies the frozen peas to his bruised face, his father 'L.C. Cheever' gives him $500 in chips from his stack. This is not allowed. Removing chips from the table, thus taking them out of out of play, is called "going south," and is very bad form. (This is different than letting another player buy chips from you to remain in the game, which does not take the chips out of play. 'L.C. Cheever' does this when he sells chips to 'Big Buckle Iverson' after busting him earlier in the movie.)

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Quotes

Billie Offer: Do you mind if I get my fortune cookie first? I like to think about it during the meal.

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Crazy Credits

After the credits there is a scene where Ready Eddie and Lester (the man with breast implants) argue over whether Lester actually spent an entire month in the bathroom or not. As the current month has thirty-one days and not just thirty. They soon begin to discuss whether the month of August has either thirty or thirty-one days, which soon leads them to a double-or-nothing wager over the fact.

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Connections

References Highway Patrol (1955)

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Soundtracks

"Maybe This Time"
Written by Fred Ebb and John Kander
Performed by Liza Minnelli
Courtesy of Capitol Records
Under license from EMI Film & Television Music

User Reviews

Lucky Who?

This is one of those movies where the only story that you would really care about is in the trailers.

I didn't know about the movie being held by the studios for a couple of years and whatever studio politics was involved in that decision. I would imagine that it was a case of several people not wanting this thing released with their name on it. It seems then that they took any interesting moments available in the entire film and made them into the trailer. I wonder if they had to go back and shoot more scenes just to be able to get footage for the trailer.

I left the film thinking that it was some sort of Gamblers Anonymous PSA gone wrong. We see what a gambling addiction will do to people throughout the film, just how screwed up some of these people are, but it's all done as a funny aside. Sort of a "oh, look at the cute alcoholic, he can't stand up." We have men getting breast implants on a bet. Yes, I know a real guy did it but that doesn't make it sane or interesting. The same character takes a bet to live in a casino men's room for a month? Huck (is that short for huckster? surely no one would name their kid Huckleberry), our lead, is so consumed by his addiction that he begs, borrows, and steals from everyone he meets. He lives alone and sleeps on a lawn chair by his empty pool. He's sold off all of his furniture (except presumably for his bed) and mortgaged the family home to the hilt. Wait, maybe that's just the American Dream updated for the '00s. No, he's cool, he's a gambler. I can see countless addicts pointing their family to this film to justify just one more mortgage so they can make it all back and live happily ever after. Vegas is counting on you baby.

I'd also like to know how this degenerate gambler manages to park his bike in the underground garage at Bellagio? Then he proceeds to wander through the back halls and service areas of one of the world's largest casinos. Yeah, right. Maybe he's trying for a part in Ocean's 23.

I know that the actors are better than this and they all have shown it across decades of fine work. How in the world does something like this movie get made and who didn't have the chips to keep this thing on the shelf where it belonged?