Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Majorthebys
Charming and brutal
Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
Robert J. Maxwell
Both John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow are television personalities in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He's a weather anchor. On the side, he runs a car dealership and he's stocked up on snowmobiles praying for a snowy winter from Gracious Providence, but not having anticipated the winter's warmth. She's the glitzy girl who pulls balls out of a machine to determine the state's winning lottery number. Neither is going anywhere.With the aid of their friend, Tim Roth, who manages a strip bar and restaurant, they concoct a scheme to win the lottery by distracting the Security Guard and injecting certain balls with a liquid that makes them heavier than others.Of course they can't present the winning ticket themselves. It might look funny. So they enlist the help of Kudrow's idiot cousin, Michael Moore, who dies of status asthmaticus at an awkward time. And, similarly, Tim Roth drags in some avaricious goons for some dirty work that later developments demand.It's a promising story, by Adam Resnik, and director Nora Ephron picks up the ball and runs with it. As comedy, this is about as black as it gets. It's a black comedy with characters adhering to nothing but hypothetical imperatives. What do I get out of it? There's nothing morally wrong with murder except that it leads to the inconvenient presence of dead bodies that must then be accounted for and disposed of.The dialog sparkles with cynical wit. Michael Moore is rapturous describing the joys of masturbation, while eying his cousin's breasts.Travolta is surprisingly good as the phony pitchman for snowmobiles and weather. And Kudrow is delicate and pretty in a quirky way. There's something bird-like about her long neck and darting glances, something that reminds one of an emu.Decent comedies rarely get the approval they deserve. Perhaps the comedy market is glutted with too much raunch that it not, in itself, funny. This one deserves applause.
Wizard-8
Watching "Lucky Numbers" was one of the most confusing cinema experiences I have had in some time. The problem becomes clear not long into watching the movie - it can't decide what kind of movie it is. A comedy? A hard drama? It seems to be trying to be BOTH of those movies, with a number of yuk yuk moments, but also some seriously harsh moments (which include some violent deaths).Had the movie tried to be a 100% comedy OR a 100% drama, I think it would have worked a lot better than it does now. But there would still be some problems with the movie. The Leonard Maltin movie guide got it right when it said the movie had "unpleasant characters". I don't blame the actors for this (even newbie actor Michael Moore), but how they were pushed in their performances by the direction and the script. But you have to wonder what they saw in the script to make them sign up.
et_tu_Brute
This script film is just plain bad and embarrassing for all concerned. The Director, Nora Ephron, notable for putting out a decent script or two (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seatle et al), surely must have recognised this scrip for the dog it is. I had to wait for the 2nd 30 minutes or so before I could see a laugh coming and when they did they were mediocre at best. However, my optimism was challenged, because by the time the last 30 minutes of the film came to fruition, it looked as though the cast were just keen to see the end of it and so was I. The writer, Adam Resnick, would have been better off developing the plot into a 5 minute skit for "Saturday Night Live", and I am being generous at best here. The end credits should have been all listed as "Alan Smithee" for the production crew. It really had me wondering one thing though.... What decent scripts did Hollywood pass over for this melange to escape the net?If you enjoyed the film, good for you.
BuffyPhanatic
She really lights up this movie. I think there are some really funny parts in this movie. It was a little slow at times, but still very good. Lisa had me laughing with her fake crash and her fake bumping her head on the wall. Travolta's character kinda scared me. For most of the movie I thought he was gonna blab the whole thing out. He seemed like a total nervous reck! Or maybe it's supposed to be that way. Who knows? I give this great comedy a 7/10
