Luckytown

As a movie, the movie sucked. It sucked in the kind of dismally bad way that only the laziest of movies can. The young male romantic interest of Kirsten Dunst ranks high in the pantheon of Characters that Should Be Killed As Soon As Possible With a Blunt Instrument - he is as likeable as the Dell Guy.

However, the only reason I write is to comment on the poker scene, which takes the cake for spectacular laziness. For a movie involving two characters who are supposed to be the top two greatest poker players in the world, it would be nice if the writer had actually bothered to peruse the rudimentary structure of poker games.

In the scene where James Caan plays the kid at poker, Caan is playing Texas Hold'em. The kid, however, is apparently playing 5-card draw. Caan's TWO cards face down are pocket Queens. That's unfortunate for him, because the kid has FIVE cards in his hand, which contain at least trip deuces. Let's make sure we got that. In the same hand of poker, one guy is playing a completely different form of poker than the other!! HA HA HA HA HA HA. When I saw this, I sat in stunned, giggly disbelief.

This is not a little error. It is unforgiveable sloppiness, especially when you bill your movie as a Vegas, gambling movie that involves the two greatest poker players in the world. It's as if a 5th grader wrote this. If it were a sports movie, it would be like one guy playing his golf shot while his opponent, a football player, tackles him. Retarded. Just like the entire surrounding movie.

Lidda (Kirsten Dunst) leaves Tulsa, Oklahoma and her mother to find her father Charlie Doyles (James Caan), a professional gambler in Vegas. She carries around a check from him. She takes store clerk Colonel (Vincent Kartheiser) along for the ride when somebody comes collecting his debt. Colonel considers himself to be a poker player. Charlie faces old nemesis Tony in high stakes poker. Charlie is in love with stripper Sugar working in Tony's club. Jimmy works for Tony to rob and then kill gamblers. Tony's nephew Frankie arrives from Italy to be the new member of the crew.

This movie is very clunky. Nobody is particularly compelling. Kirsten is grumpy and Vincent is no leading man. They don't have any chemistry. James Caan is coasting on his reputation in this movie. Luis Guzmán is a passable hit-man but he's capable of much more. This is trying to be a hard-boiled crime drama and personal drama. It doesn't have the style or any good writing. It doesn't have any thrills or tension. It stumbles on and on as the audience waits for Lidda to finally meet up with Charlie.

This movie is so dumb. The James Caan parts of it are a lame excuse for soft-core porn and pseudo-gangster antics. The Kirsten Dunst/Vincent Kartheiser parts have the potential to be really, really good -- good dialogue building a truly interesting relationship. BUT. Kirsten's acting sucks -- it just sucks in every way possible. They have no chemistry.

The character of Lidda (Dunst) wasn't "bad" enough for me -- she wasn't much of anything, it was like she was reading her lines and had no clue what was going on. Vincent Kartheiser's Colonel was just about the only believable character -- I liked Colonel a lot. But it didn't help the film much.

I didn't appreciate the none-too-subtly cloaked symbolism (i.e. the "Second Chance Motel," the whole movie happening on and around Valentine's Day). The ending was also stupid -- it's supposed to be optimistic, a "fresh start," but PLEASE. You know she's going to keep smoking, and he's going to keep gambling, and they'll get sick of each other really fast and break up again. It didn't convince me.

Indeed, dumb. But don't blame the writer--he had written a kick ass script before this clumsy director got involved and made him re-write it 2-3 times and sucked all the life out of it. The original script was great and had Martin Sheen set to play Charlie. The writer, fresh out of UCLA, was set to direct it. At the last minute the funding dried up and one of the actors got the script to Paul, who then took over as director. He was flush with money from a German media company. He pushed Brendan aside as director and this mess was created. Probably destroyed the confidence (and career) of a promising young writer in the process.

Luckytown can be an entertaining flick to watch with a group of friends. Disregarding all of the goofy duologue, overused storyline, and some lazy character development, Luckytown could actually be a fun movie. Try not to take it too seriously, even though it tries too hard to be serious. The only real complaints I had was the acting of Vincent Kartheiser. His duologue was very cheesy at times and his acting didn't make it any better. I really liked Luis Guzman. I also liked James Caan and Kirsten Dunst. There are some decent action scenes and the relationship of Lidda and Colonial can be very interesting at times. I thought the director really tried to give a good effort, even though a lot of the film fails. To enjoy this Luckytown you have to go in with a sense of just wanting to see an entertaining film. Don't expect it to be amazing. But overall take Luckytown as a fun popcorn movie!