Lucky You

Director Curtis Hanson (LA CONFIDENTIAL, WONDER BOYS) raises the stakes and takes on Las Vegas in LUCKY YOU. Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) plays poker for a living, using every opportunity that arises in daily life to hone his skills and test the odds. He is fuelled by both a compulsion to win and the desire to do better than his father, L. C. Cheever (Robert Duvall), who is a championship poker player. Huck’s skills come naturally, but he lacks patience. When he meets Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore), an earnest, honest girl from Bakersfield pursuing her dream of being a singer, he sees the possibility of a real relationship for the first time. But Huck’s habits are hard to break, and he’ll have to make some changes if he wants to make this relationship work.
Barrymore is sweet as Billie, but it is the relationship between Huck and his father that moves the story along. Huck harbors ill feelings towards L. C. from his childhood--feelings that are complicated by his burning desire to beat his father at poker. Bana effectively shows the animosity Huck feels towards his father with subtle changes to his facial expression and body language, and Duvall actually makes the hard-nosed L. C. likeable. Ultimately, the real star of this movie is poker. Throughout the film, it’s the strategies and bets, the flops and the rivers, that draw the viewer in. Professional poker players served as consultants and extras in the film, lending authenticity to the World Series of Poker where father and son face off. Debra Messing plays Billie’s sister, Horatio Sanz is Ready Eddie, who can turn any situation into a bet, and Robert Downey Jr. appears all too briefly as Huck’s friend.