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:

Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, Robert Duvall

2 nominations.

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:

movie flop | poker | poker player | losing | reference to frederic chopin | 

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Taglines:

Change your game. Change your life.

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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

Did You Know?

Trivia

Eric Bana and Robert Downey, Jr. have appeared in big-screen comic book adaptations. Bana in Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), and Downey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Goofs

Just after the players at the final table are introduced, the dealer goes through the motions of "washing" the cards, that is, spreading them out haphazardly over the table, then gathering them up again into a neat stack for shuffling and dealing twice, repeating the gestures between shots without the time required for human hands to make the gestures twice.

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Quotes

L. C. Cheever: You're not going to be happy until you have nothing left.

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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

Dance Me to the End of Love
Written by Leonard Cohen
Performed by Madeleine Peyroux
Courtesy of Rounder Records

User Reviews

If you like poker, then this movie is for you.

Drew Barrymore is an actress whose talent has not yet been fully tapped. Eric Bana is good but, as usual, Ms. Barrymore is wonderful. She proves once again that she has developed into a wonderful actress. Robert Duvall is also good. What was not so good was the story itself. The father-son conflict is contrived and ultimately fails dramatically. Also, Eric Bana's character is an insipid loser and not particularly nice, so there is nothing about him to inspire empathy. He takes money, squanders it, disrespects his father, steals from his girlfriend, acts irresponsibly and does stupid things. But if you want to learn a few things about poker players, then this is the movie to watch. Actually, the real story is the poker game itself. Some of the players at the table seemed to be much more interesting than Mr. Bana's character and if the movie dealt (no pun intended) more with them, then maybe this movie would have been more entertaining. Nevertheless, having Drew Barrymore in this movie makes it still worth watching.

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros. [United States]

Country:

USA Germany Australia

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

4 May 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Lucky You

Filming Locations:

Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,710,445, 6 May 2007

Gross USA:

$5,758,950

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$8,461,686

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