Las Vegas is a city created by the movies. In terms of the number of movies that have portrayed a city consciously (as opposed to say, Los Angeles, where all movies are set), it’s second only to New York City and Paris. Always decadent and glitzy, Las Vegas can be glamorous (“Ocean’s 11”), miserable (“Leaving Las Vegas”), or another world entirely (“Fear and Loathing…”). It’s curious, then, that Curtis Hanson’s new movie “Lucky You” makes it none of these. Hanson treats the city like a throwaway backdrop for the bland romantic comedy story of a skilled and compulsive gambler and the Girl Who Could Change Him. But if there’s one thing the movies have taught us, it’s that Las Vegas isn’t bland.
Eric Bana stars as Huck Cheever, a go-for-broke “blaster” at the poker table who rolls with the big boys, never sleeps and is scared only of his father, the two-time world poker champion L.C. Cheever (Robert Duvall). Huck, as his father points out, lives his life the way he should play poker, and plays poker the way he should live his life: until a demure little thing named Billie (Drew Barrymore) shows up at a party one night.
As played by Barrymore, Billie is an inexplicably naive and goofy girl, just in from Bakersfield to start her career as a nightclub singer. (Every girl who’s ever won a guy in Vegas has been either a nightclub singer or a prostitute.) At first it seems like the only reason Huck would be interested in her is because she’s Drew Barrymore, and everyone seems to like Drew Barrymore despite the fact that she’s never played anyone other than: guess what?: Drew Barrymore (saying all of your lines through a smirk is not acting!). But when he steals $1,200 from her as gambling capital after their first night together, we realize not only what really drives Huck, but what the movie is really about. And on the one hand, that’s a good thing, because Huck’s relationship with his father is infinitely more interesting than anything involving Barrymore; but, like the city on screen, the whole movie is sterilized down to the intensity of a good TV movie, and even Duvall’s predictably fierce performance can’t give the father-son story the fire it needs.
The poker scenes, it should be said, are well done even if they may leave most novices in the dust, since Hanson seems to know that all poker in the movies really amounts to is people staring intently at each other. Bana has a fine, confident gaze, and it’s fun to see how the looks of his various opponents stack up. Many real-life poker stars make appearances throughout the movie, so the table scenes feel genuine and sportsmanlike.
And to the degree that “Lucky You” is a generic sports movie, Hanson does a commendable job of avoiding a predictable climax. I was reminded of Mamet’s survival story “The Edge,” in which the real denouement isn’t a flashy showdown in the forest, but a simple exchange of wristwatches. Hanson knows what his story is about, and isn’t afraid to sidestep winning and losing. The only problem is all the other stuff that gets mixed in, like the silly romance with Barrymore. Once she recedes into the background (she’s seen as literally just one of the crowd at the final championship poker match), we realize that Barrymore’s Billie is all too clearly stuck in just so that Huck has someone to explain the game to. At their first round of cards together, Huck seems none too pleased to have to go over the rules of Texas Hold ‘Em with Billie, and we in the audience just feel patronized.
This is a small movie, and it will please poker fans, but if Hanson isn’t prepared to go anywhere gritty: to show us the violent, desperate Las Vegas that Huck’s neuroses hint at: he shouldn’t bother stooping to make it user-friendly. Great movies ask the viewer to rise to their level; they don’t tone down the city of sin.
Grade: D
