The Lucky Ones

Seven Reasons to See:

1.) You loved director/writer Neil Burger’s last film The Illusionist, as I did (it was also named one of NBR’s Top Independent Films of 2006), so you want to see his latest work.

2.) Tim Robbins

3.) Michael Pena

4.) Rachel McAdams

5.) For the road trip across most of the U.S.A. from New York City to Las Vegas. The locations all real — giving the film a strong sense of place.

6.) You don’t want to spend your movie dollars on the war debate. You can watch the 2008 presidential debates for that. This film, by the way, is as apolitical as they come.

7.) You haven’t seen a fiction film on Iraq yet, and you want to see why nobody else has either.

Seven Reasons to Take a Pass (some spoilers in this list):

1.) You don’t want to see a film about Iraq unless it’s won 12 Academy Awards.

2.) You don’t want to see a film about Iraq even if it’s won 12 Academy Awards.

3.) Even though I’m a firm believer in truth is stranger than fiction, this film constantly strains your credibility radar off the charts. Can we start with the wife telling her husband she wants a divorce in front of two complete strangers? The sex workers in the middle of nowhere! The church scene that would only really make sense if it was part of a dream/nightmare, which it isn’t. The tornado scene. And it doesn’t end there, folks.

4.) For a film about Iraq it doesn’t have many insights regarding the returning vets. We watch folks treat them respectfully by telling them “good job,” etc. Or we watch others be equally mean or uncaring about them. The McAdams character (Colee) gets so upset with some nasty ladies in a bar, making fun of her war-wound limp, that she actually gets into a (badly directed) bar brawl.

5.) Most (not all) of the film’s comedy is tone deaf. Yes, we want and need comedy in serious films. But in this film lots of it doesn’t work or even find the right blend with the more serious material. Of course, if you love lots of impotence jokes this film might be for you.

6.) Red-herring moments galore…but none more silly as when our three protagonists walk into the above-mentioned bar (see bar brawl in #4) and everyone’s silent and watching a television screen. OK, we’re led to believe some horrible event has happened, a dreadful terrorist attack possibly. But it turns out in a bar filled with people drinking heavily all have all stopped talking and carousing to see who the winner of that week’s “America’s Got Talent” is. So that’s supposed to be funny (see #5), or what? It’s just misleading. I guess Burger is trying to tell us (after pulling the rug out from under us) that Americans care more about reality TV than what’s going on in the real world (i.e., Iraq).

7.) The ending. Burger and company seem to think the ending is powerful. However, it’s basically the same exact ending as Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss—so if you’ve seen that…you start to think…wait, I’ve seen this film before. No, just the ending with different characters. Don’t directors, producers, and their agents, and the like, know how the other Iraq films in production end? Wouldn’t they have changed theirs if they did know?

                                                             Jim Baldassare