Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a great time to come out with a movie about poker, since the sport has taken off at supersonic speed with amateurs winning the main event of the World Series in the last few years and people following the action on ESPN. The main problem I see with this movie though is that in an effort to be original it runs into unreal situations like a misdeal followed by a huge bad beat, or a close call to end a contrived bet.
The plot is fairly typical, a poker pro, Huck Cleever, trying to make it to the World Series of poker and win the main event. In the process, he meets a girl that shakes his world and makes him rethink his priorities. The added complication is that he is the son of a two-time winner of the event, and the son-father relationship has been in tatters for a long time. During his quest, Huck experiences huge swings in his luck, and this provides an enlightening view of what the life of a professional gambler can be like.
The acting is not particularly inspired, with the exception of Robert Duvall, who plays L.C. Cheever, the father of the protagonist. Duvall infuses his character with the external toughness and inner conflicts that the role requires and is therefore extremely successful in the process. There is a wide array of poker pros taking part in this movie, but most of them have silent roles, the exceptions are Sammy Farha and Jason Lester, who have a couple of lines each. The list of celebrities includes among others Phil Helmut, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. I did not really understand why a couple of pros play characters with different names, like Jennifer Harman, who plays Shannon Kincaid, or John Hennigan as Ralph Kaczynski.
Overall, I think that the idea of the movie was good, but the execution was deficient and the overall quality suffered as a result. For a long time to come, poker movies are going to be evaluated in terms of how they compare to Rounders, and in that sense, this one comes up short. Poker players will probably get some enjoyment from this production, but they should not expect much.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Lucky You (2007)
Ante up for a sure entertainment bet from L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson, who co-wrote this charmer with fellow Academy Award winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump). Pro gambler Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) meets irresistible Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore) and learns to treat love the way he treats cards: trusting his heart instead of his head. He also scrambles to raise the entry fee for the high-roller World Series of Poker, even though - or maybe because - the tournament may pit him against his estranged father (Robert Duvall), a two-time Series winner.DVD Features:Deleted ScenesFeaturette
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