LUCKY NUMBERS
SYNOPSIS:
Local TV celebrity and weatherman Russ Richards (John Travolta) is facing financial ruin
in his snowmobile dealership during the warmest of winters. He turns to his old pal and
shady club owner Gig (Tim Roth) for help, whose illegal suggestions require the assistance
of Dale "The Thug" (Michael Rapaport). Integral to the get-rich-quick scheme, is
sexy lotto ball girl Crystal Latroy (Lisa Kudrow), with whom Russ and TV general manager
Dick Simmons (Ed O'Neill) are both sleeping (not at the same time). But lucky numbers
cause complications of their own…
"Nora Ephron has hit the jackpot with Lucky Numbers, a frivolous, fun and fanciful
farce with plenty of fabulous fandangle. This is escapism at its most light hearted and
the delights arise from unlikely situations which progressively get more and more
fantastic. What I like about the film is that there are no pretensions; it's just a very
funny film with lots of laughs, while the sleek, slick cast is as good as it gets. The
characters all send themselves up beautifully: John Travolta's tv weatherman Russ Richards
has a severe overdose of media manic ego, while genuinely believing himself to be an
exemplary upstanding citizen with a conscience. Lisa Kudrow's feisty, dizzy blonde with
loose morals creates new yardsticks for blonde jokes, using her considerable feminine
assets to get exactly what she wants. As for Tim Roth, the sleezy strip club-owning hood
('hiring a thug is like a visit to the podiatrist'), he is as cool as a chilled marguerita
on crushed ice. Add Married with Children's Ed O'Neill as the dry tv executive boss;
Michael Rapaport as Dale 'The Thug' (high and low on anti-depressants); Bill Pullman as
the lazy copy who is looking for a cop out; and you have a wonderful team whose comic
talents are zipping with high energy. The lines are relentless – they're fast and
funny. We anticipate the delicious, crazy situations and get twice the payoff. Tap your
toes ad hope your lucky number comes up, Lucky Numbers is fresh nonsense for the comedy
hungry."
Louise Keller
"Nora Ephron specialises in toxic romantic comedies (such as You've Got Mail) crammed with horrible whimsy, like artificially flavored desserts smothered in fake whipped cream. Lucky Numbers is slightly more bearable than her other films, because at least it's openly unpleasant: still processed sludge, but without the added sugar. It's a late entry in the cycle of 'black comedies' derived from Tarantino and the Coen brothers, based on the joke of combining murder and mayhem with everyday chitchat. In between bouts of violence, we see the characters telling bad jokes or eating takeaway food - suggesting that both aspects of their lives are equally banal. The closest thing Ephron has to a stylistic trademark is her taste for retro pop songs, here used ironically to give an effect of lipsmacking cynicism: a comic murder sequence bounces along to the rhythm of 'Mack The Knife.' The film is meant to be sordid, but it's also meant to be a hearty romp. However, it's hard to care much about what will happen to the characters when they're all treated with identical sniggering contempt. John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow are both wonderful comic actors, but even they are unable to make Russ and Crystal into likeable or interesting people. Travolta's obnoxious weatherman swaggers round like a pampered middle-aged version of Rupert Pupkin from The King Of Comedy, flashing cheesy grins and gladhanding his adoring public: the satire is meant to be aimed at tacky small-town broadcasting, but it feels more like displaced self-hatred. Russ is mocked because he wants to be a big-time game show host, but is that any more ridiculous than wanting to make commercial Hollywood movies? This kind of snide, joyless nihilism is a central trend in recent US pop culture, and
viewers seem to accept it, presumably because it mirrors their own alienation: there's something familiar and finally soothing about such a calculated display of bad faith and automatic disgust."
Jake Wilson
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CRITICAL COUNT
Favourable: 1
Unfavourable: 1
Mixed: 0
LUCKY NUMBERS (M)
(US)
CAST: John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth, Ed O'Neill, Michael Rapaport
DIRECTOR: Nora Ephron
PRODUCER: Sean Daniel, Nora Ephron, Jonathan D. Krane, Andrew Lazar
SCRIPT: Adam Resnick
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Lindley
EDITOR: Barry Malkin
MUSIC: George Fenton
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Dan Davis
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes
AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: UIP
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE: February 8, 2001
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures
VIDEO RELEASE DATE: September 21, 2001
VIDEO RELEASE: March 8, 2002 (Sell-thru)
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