Pura Suerte

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.

(I just had to say that before anyone else!)

I don't know anything about poker, but I enjoyed this film all right.

The people in the audience who do understand the game were getting a lot more out of it than I did. They were oohing and ahhing and tensing up like they were at a real poker tournament.

I'm surprised Drew Barrymore took a supporting role like this. She's good and lovely as always (how come she still looks 20?), but doesn't get enough to do. Robert Downey Jr and Jean Smart are also woefully underused.

The film really belongs to Eric Bana and Robert Duvall. Eric is handsome and solid. And it's a real treat to watch an old pro like Duvall.

It's only a slight tale, but a pretty good one. I could tell from one of the first scenes how it was going to wind up. Hey, maybe I should take up poker.

The advertisements for "Lucky You" made it out to be a romantic comedy but Drew Barrymore is hardly in the movie. The movie is mostly of guys playing poker.

If you are a big poker fan, you will probably going to like it. Everyone else will probably be bored. If you thought the scenes in "Casino Royal" of guys playing cards was exciting, you will really like this film.

Ten years ago Curtis Hanson made "L.A. Confidential," one of the greatest films of all time. Since then, he has made some decent films but none of them have been really great.

"Lucky You" is well made and has good production quality. Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall are always good. Eric Bana is an okay actor but lacks charisma. It doesn't help that his character is a big time loser and a compulsive gambler.

"Lucky You" will be a big hit with spectator poker fans, but everyone else is likely to be disappointed.

As far as playing or watching poker on television, I can take it or leave it, and I enjoyed this movie.... so I can imagine poker fans will really LOVE this film. It gives justice to their "sport" with realistic hands, playing, situations and attitudes.

Often, I thought something hokey was going to happen, something predictable but rarely did that occur in this film. You really never knew what was going to happen and suspense builds for a number of gambling scenes. I hesitate to say more for fear of spoiling anything. Suffice to say, the gambling scenes in here were very realistic. I know what from the behind-the- scenes bonus features in which a number of real-life professional players commented on that fact.

The film follows a father-and-son team (Eric Bana and Robert Duvall playing "Huck" and "L.C. Cheever") with a small romance sub-plot involving Drew Barrymore. It isn't just all about poker, although that's most of it - culminating in the World Series of Poker - but about the mentality of people who make gambling their life.

This film was far better than I figured it would be, and was rewarding in the end without being predictable. It was fairly low-key, too, in the profanity and sex department, but kids would be bored with this film, anyway.

This movie will mainly attract card players, I'm afraid, and that's too bad because it offers a lot more than that. The movie got better as it went along and wound up a good two hours of entertainment.

The very sympathetic character of Huck Cheever displays some of the worst compulsive gambler behavior. It's appropriate to the movie and is certainly exhibited by many people who gamble a lot. In fact, it might be the most realistic part of the movie. Unfortunately, the only thing that keeps spouses sane is not knowing

I'm a very frequent poker player and sports bettor, and I enjoyed the movie. But the less intimately acquainted my wife is with the pitfalls of gambling the better she'll sleep. Besides, all the Drew Barrymore scenes really seemed flat to me so it may not even be a very good date movie.