Lucky Numbers (2000)

Very disappointing...

How sad is this?

Great Film overall

Fantastic!

"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.

With comedies, some things are funny and hit your funny bone just right and others don't for whatever reason. I particularly enjoy a tongue in cheek style dialog like the one in this movie. Travolta plays a self important weatherman on a cheesy news program and is so clueless, he becomes charming. I think this film is clever, campy, intelligent and sardonic and I loved it. I have seen it many times and it is still very entertaining. For the record it is crude and there are strippers, hit men, tacky sex scenes and some language but it is always making fun of itself so the crudeness is not really that offensive in my opinion. Lisa Kudrow and Travolta are truly funny together and the other actors add a lot to the film, they are so well cast. I looked up the writer of this film and wonder why he has not written more comedies- as he is really witty here.

Well, well, well...Many people were curious what would be Travolta's follow-up stinker to his previous MEGA-stinker, "Battlefield Earth: The Saga Of A Dumb Hollywood Scientologist". And he didn't disappoint: "Lucky Numbers" is a piece of crap, not quite the kind of highly enjoyable garbage like that little intellectual exercise written by "Elron" Hubbard, but nevertheless trash of the highest order. Not to be enjoyed in any way, but marveled.1: the movie was utterly unfunny. 2: it was supposed to be a comedy. 1 + 2 = an embarrassment to all involved, to the viewer and to the maker of this crap.The plot is supposedly based on true events, yet so much in this movie smells of phoniness. It lacks realism. Besides, any film that has Michael Moore (a bad propaganda-movie maker and even worse actor and director) in its list of cast members can't have much chance of being quality stuff.Having realized after the first 10 minutes that this movie is going to be relentless in its pursuit of unfunniness, I was half-hoping that Travolta would once again introduce the concept of "leverage" into the plot. (Leverage was an essential tool used by aliens in "B.E.", riveting stuff, I assure you.) I thought maybe John's character could try to find out what Roth's character likes to eat and send him on a quest for rat - as happened in the afore-mentioned bomb.Forget his movies for a second if you can - and something tells me that LN is easy to forget (or at least advisable). The only thing I want to know now is how such a brilliant mind, such as Travolta undoubtedly has, can learn to fly an airplane? Is he an idiot savant? Or is learning to fly much easier than I thought? (MUCH easier.) Dear John, go back to your plans of making a sequel to your wonderfully inept "Battlefield Earth" saga. All us fans of that Edwoodsian mega-flop are praying (even though I'm an atheist!) that you make that follow-up stinker - and you promised you would!

It was refreshing to see Travolta play a reluctant, unsophisticated crook for a change. Here he is a small TV station weatherman, adored by all the locals, and who also has a snowmobile dealership. The year is 1988 and the winter is unseasonably warm. No snowmobiles are being sold, and his home is about to be repossessed. He needs money but his boss is refusing this time. some SPOILERS FOLLOW - Small time numbers man (Tim Roth) suggests he stage a theft, and get the insurance money, "That money is yours, they are using your insurance premiums and earning interest on it." That fails miserably, he gets deeper in debt, this time to a burglar, and has to do something really desperate - rig the Pennsylvania lottery so he and his girlfriend (Kudrow) can split the $6.4Million, with the help of a masturbating and asthmatic cousin. Enough of the details, the scam works, sort of, but the cousin dies, others want their cut, all this time Travolta's character is scared and upset that he would actually do these things. In the end everyone else gets killed or otherwise in trouble, he gets the extremely dumb waitress at Denny's, his favorite breakfast spot, to cash in the ticket and they move to warmer climate of Florida. Sometimes you just have to have a bit of "Luck."This is the antithesis of all those Travolta movies (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, etc) where he plays the smart criminal who knows all the right moves, well almost all. Here he is not particularly bright, and is a very reluctant participant. I cannot say the movie is good, much of the dialog is haphazard, but it does entertain. With a smarter script, and in the hands of a different director, this premise could have been turned into a much better dark comedy on par with "Analyze That" or "The Whole Nine Yards." As it is, "Lucky Numbers" can entertain but its appropriate rating is around "5" or "6", about where the IMDb numbers are clustering now. The DVD is just OK, and the extras are not worth mentioning. Good light entertainment, if you are in the mood to be very forgiving of a bad script.