Powerful

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent but underrated film

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Do people actually remember this? This must be one of those that people haven't watched since about a year or so after it came out. And TBS doesn't count. I decided to watch it for old times sake, and found it better than when I first saw it. Lucky Numbers is no Ocean's Eleven or The Killing, but it is still very fun. The characters are dumber than the movies I just mentioned, but that works in the respects of the comedy and narrative. Smarter characters would have made the film less exciting, less fun, and over in a few minutes. These dumb characters are actually believable and well drawn, so it doesn't feel like an intelligence insult.Lucky Numbers is a dark comedy based on the real lottery scandal in Pennsylvania in 1980. It stars John Travolta in the career ruining year for him. This was dissed by critics the same year he did Battlefield Earth. But this is much better. He is funny, down to his hair. He plays hotshot weatherman Russ Richards who is loved by everybody. He also owns a snowmobile dealership that is doing bad. Facing bankruptcy, his friend Gig (Tim Roth) suggests for him and his evil girlfriend (Lisa Kudrow) to rig the lottery. Lisa Kudrow plays Crystal, a model at the TV stations who pulls the numbers during the lottery program. Gig will get 20%, and Russ and Crystal will get the rest. It's awesome! A slew of people threaten the scam by demanding a share to keep their mouths shut. Michael Moore makes an appearance as Crystal's dumb cousin, Michael Rapaport plays a hit-man, Ed O'Neill plays the TV boss, and there's others. Will Russ get out in one piece?The flaw that really gave the movie its bad rap was how many characters got introduced and how many times their roles in the scam kept changing. I don't mind there being lots of characters that change, but they should be introduced all at the beginning and have one set of people come about near the end. Sometime after the picks happen, characters are thrown in left right and centre and it becomes unclear where they fit in the puzzle. If this element was fixed, the ratings would be MUCH higher than they are now. But there's other aspects that make this a good movie. The characters are hilarious, and the dark tone is played about perfectly. In terms of the physical directing, Nora Ephron succeeds. As a neo-heist film, it succeeds. As a comedy, it succeeds to some people such as myself. I recommend revisiting this.

"Russ Richards" (John Travolta) is a famous television weather reporter who also happens to own a snowmobile dealership. Nevertheless, because of unseasonal warm temperatures he has seen his business decline dramatically and is faced with foreclosure. Likewise, his girlfriend "Crystal" (Lisa Kudrow) is also facing some money problems and at the urging of Russ' friend "Gig" (Tim Roth) they come up with a plan to rig the Pennsylvania state lottery in order to win $6.4 million. However, since both Russ and Crystal work at the television station that hosts the lottery they need an outsider to actually cash the winning ticket. And this is when the problems really begin. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I liked several of the actors cast in this movie. Unfortunately, the character development was clearly inadequate and as a result it made the movie seem somewhat shallow and disjointed. At least that's how it seemed to me. In any case, although I liked the performances of both Tim Roth and Lisa Kudrow, I felt the overall movie could have used some improvement here and there and because of that I have to rate this film as slightly below average.

Nora Ephron, between Bewitched and this movie should be mandated by law from making any more movies. Unrealistic, a complete lack of empathy with every day human being reality with the working or middle class. People just don't talk or act this way. Get out of Hollywoo and Beverly Hills.The one major exception - TIM ROTH, funny, bright, somewhat believable.Please don't waste your money on this movie or rental.I don't understand how Ms. Ephron has become this iconoclastic, Hollywood, revered individual. Give me a hint, please!Have I reached 10 lines yet?

LUCKY NUMBERS (2000) * John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth, Ed O' Neill, Michael Rapaport, Daryl Mitchell, Bill Pullman, Michael Moore, Richard Schiff, Michael Weston. (Dir: Nora Ephron)Weatherman never seem to get any proper respect and I'm sure you'll agree that whenever you click onto the local daily newscast with the award-winning team that when they finally get around to the announcement of their weatherman it is often with a false laugh and a couldn't-care-less disdain tone in their voices. Like Steve Martin in `L.A. Story' and Bill Murray in `Groundhog Day', John Travolta plays a hapless forecaster with a yen to something better.The something for Russ Richards (Travolta), Harrisburg, PA's local celebrity weatherman, it is a desire to become a game show host by any means necessary (echoes of `To Die For') which leads him to shirk his big-fish-in-a-small pond status and his going nowhere snowmobile sales dealership that is floundering ironically due to unseasonably warm weather for the winter. Russ, up to his neck in debt with a 30 day foreclosure on his house and his taste for a sporty Jag to tool around in to his private booth at the local Denny's (featuring the Russ Richards Omelette), conspires with his mistress Crystal (Kudrow, finally breaking away from her ditsy Emmy winning role as Phoebe on the sitcom blockbuster `Friends'), the lottery girl at the tv station, and his good buddy Gig (Roth) the proprietor of a strip club, to rig the state lottery with a surefire scheme to win the $6.4 M stake at hand. What follows is a domino effect of comedic errors that don't exactly provide guffaws or for me, even a smile. The fact that the trio pull it off is a miracle in itself but when their not so ingenious plan backfires the daisy-chain of events builds up with no big payoff. Characters are sloppily thrown in - Crystal's asthmatic, masturbating (thankfully off-screen) cousin Walter (rabble-rousing filmmaker Moore who provides some limited humor) is introduced as the dupe to cash in the winning claim ticket; Mitchell and Pullman as respectively an overzealous by-the-book rookie and slacker police team investigating the crime(s) at hand (Pullman seems to be doing a variation of his `stupidest man alive' character from `Ruthless People'); local bookie (Schiff, completely wasted in a pointed cameo); Rapaport cornering the cottage industry has set himself up for on another variation of mindless streetwise thugs as Dale The Thug (I'm not making that up either!) - while the threadebare plot by veteran comedy scribe Adam Resnick (including `The Larry Sanders Show' and Chris Elliott's cult sitcom classic `Get A Life') is staggeringly ill-conceived (based loosely on the real-life 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery fix) from the get go. Travolta, who has been in a string of flops for some time now since his Phoenix from the ashes revival in 1994's `Pulp Fiction', does what he can but his Russ is a one-dimensional character with shades of grey alluded to and all but force fed by the film's 180 degree turn at the end. After all he did get his big break in comedy in the classic Seventies' sitcom `Welcome Back, Kotter' as the vacuous leader of the sweathogs, iconic Vinnie Barbarino which proved he could make people laugh effortlessly. Here it's like watching him dance under water; gracelessly. Kudrow, who is an underrated comic actress (witness the indie hit `The Opposite Sex' for her bilious turn as a sexually frustrated schoolteacher surviving by her wits) and can act (ditto `Friends'), and even though she has shedded her alter ego of airheaded genius, her conniving Crystal is very unlikable and pretty ugly (which I suppose is the point). Filmmaker Ephron has had an equally unequal track record from her excellent screenplay of `When Harry Met Sally.' to her bomb directorial debut `Mixed Nuts' and the disastrous `Hanging Up' (co-starring Kudrow) this year as well, that maybe she should focus on one instead of both careers. The film overall feels half-baked and a hybrid of a crime drama and a black comedy ( I guess) of `A Simple Plan' and the aforementioned `Ruthless People' which only appears to be unlucky in the end run.