The Lucky Ones

The Associated Press

September 25, 2008 by The Associated Press | Staff

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Soldiers might be clamoring to re-enlist if they all saw as much action in their homecoming as the threesome in "The Lucky Ones." Returning to combat could seem like a picnic in comparison with the tumult these three endure once back on U.S. soil.

"The Lucky Ones" is the latest casualty in Hollywood's unsatisfying parade of war-on-terror dramas, a movie built on improbabilities.

Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena manage occasional moments of humor and pathos as three wounded Iraq War veterans on an impromptu road trip across America.

But mostly, the screenplay by director Neil Burger and co-writer Dirk Wittenborn forges a false camaraderie by hurling the three lead players into consistently artificial situations.

Beginning with a blackout that forces them to rent a car and drive rather than fly, "The Lucky Ones" tosses out one convenient contrivance after another to bond these battle-scarred strangers together, culminating in a preposterous encounter with a tornado that seems to blow in from some action flick playing in the next theater.

Though each comes with a fairly detailed life story, the characters feel like hollow creations, deliberately designed as utter opposites so the filmmakers can show us how we're all really the same inside.

Robbins plays Fred Cheever, a sturdy family man eager to return home to his wife and teenage son in the St. Louis suburbs.

Pena is T.K. Poole, a cocky sergeant headed to Las Vegas to seek "professional" sex therapy to restore his male plumbing.

McAdams is Colee Dunn, a Southerner who's taken nothing but hard knocks in life, yet retains her cheery optimism as she carts a fallen comrade's valuable guitar back to his parents, who coincidentally also live in Vegas.

Seated near one another on a flight from Germany to New York, the three then end up sharing a minivan and all kinds of fabricated adventures meant to turn them from passing acquaintances to comrades in arms. Though our heroes don't always get what they want, the road manages to toss up precisely what they need. Unfortunately, there's little subtlety to the roadblocks, detours, U-turns and pit stops Burger and his team concoct.

- By David Germain / Associated Press

The Lucky Ones

Rating: 2 stars (out of four)

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins, Michael Pena, Molly Hagan, Mark L. Young, Howard Platt, Arden Myrin, Coburn Goss.

Running time: 104 minutes.

Rated: R; language and some sexual content.

Forum: Movies

Tags: 

drama, rated r, Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins, Michael Pena, Molly Hagan, Mark L. Young, Howard Platt, Arden Myrin, Coburn Goss

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