When three very different U.S. soldiers find
themselves on an unplanned road trip across America,
they form a deep bond that may be the closest thing
any of them has to real family. A humorous and
timely drama about coming home, The Lucky Ones
stars Rachel McAdams (The Notebook,
Wedding Crashers), Tim Robbins (Mystic
River, The Shawshank Redemption) and Michael
Pena (Crash, World Trade Center), and is
directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist)
from a screenplay by Burger and Dirk
Wittenborn.
T.K. Poole (Michael Pena),
Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) and Fred Cheever
(Tim Robbins) arrive in New York from
Germany only to find their connecting flights
canceled due to a power outage. Anxious to get to
their respective destinations, they agree to share a
rented minivan to suburban St. Louis where
Cheever is to reunite with his wife and teenage son.
From there, the other two plan to fly to Las
Vegas where the macho T.K. wants to make an
important stop before seeing his fiancée and the
tough yet naive Colee plans to pay a visit to a
fallen fellow-soldier's family.
But
when Cheever's homecoming turns out to be a far cry
from what he anticipated, the trio's one-day drive
expands into an impromptu cross-country marathon.
Along the way, they experience a string of
surprising adventures ranging from the hilarious to
the heartbreaking. As their interstate journey takes
them from a barroom brawl to a high society dance to
a bizarre Sunday morning church service, T.K., Colee
and Cheever discover that home is not quite what
they remembered and the unlikely companionship
they've found in one another might be what matters
most of all.
With a cast that includes Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena,
we expected a little more from this indie film about three soldiers returning
from Iraq in various states of mental and physical disrepair.
The film starts with the three arriving in New York where a massive power
outage has cancelled flights out of the northeast. The three rent a car and
begin an impromptu road trip across the United States intended to lightheartedly
entertain and amuse the audience. The movie fails in three key areas. The
script, the acting and the believability of the storyline.
Improbable unbelievable cliché filled story and script. Bad,
uninterested acting.
Three Sentence Synopsis:
Three former soldiers arrive in New York from
Germany only to find their connecting flights
canceled due to a power outage. Anxious to get to
their respective destinations, they agree to share a
rented minivan to suburban St. Louis where
one of them is to reunite with his wife and teenage son.
But when the homecoming turns out to be a far cry
from what he anticipated, the trio's one-day drive expands into an impromptu
cross-country marathon where they they experience a string of surprising
adventures ranging from the hilarious to the heartbreaking.
The storyline is full of clichés and unbelievable moments. When the three
show up at a small bar in a college town, they are ridiculed by students and
eventually end up in a bar room brawl. Colee Dunn, the female in the trio makes
the comment "I wish I had my weapon" every time she gets a little nervous. In
one scene the three get into an argument and jump out of the rental car. They
are on the side of the freeway and end up locked out. How could all three in the
heat of an argument have remembered to lock the doors on the way out?
In another scene Pena and McAdams characters end up in a drainage pipe under
a road while a tornado blows over. They look like they are barely clinging to
life, and yet when the storm passes and they crawl out the car is mysteriously
not even off the road and in near mint condition. If was waiting for a cow to
fly by a-la Twister and they were driving off into the sunset.
All three actors have appeared in top notch films, yet their
performances seemed lackluster at best. Lines are delivered slow and moments
that are supposed to be light, simply aren't. The acting was painful to watch,
as if they just had to get through this and go do something else.
In the end, The Lucky Ones are not so lucky and this film is not only
improbable, but boring and poorly acted.
The
Lucky Ones,