Lucky Numbers (2000)

Lucky Numbers (2000): Dir: Nora Ephron / Cast: John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth, Bill Pullman, Ed O'Neill: Anything but lucky for those unfortunate enough to see it. Title refers to its two stars but since the ongoing events result in bad luck it comes off as a misdirection. John Travolta plays an adored weatherman who is joined by lottery girl Lisa Kudrow in rigging the lottery. She is romantically involved with both Travolta and her boss. Director Nora Ephron previously directed Travolta in Michael but here she is surrounded by endless stupidity. The production looks as festive as an outdoor toilet. Travolta looks plain desperate as he attempts to erase one mistake by creating five new ones. Kudrow plays dimwit dumb without payoff. When her asthmatic cousin fails to come through on part of the scheme she throttle the tar out of him, unintentionally killing him. In any event both leads are at their worst, and considering that Travolta starred in the dreadful Battlefield Earth the same year, it would take more than the lottery to bypass that shame. Tim Roth is best casting as a strip club owner who assists the star duo. Bill Pullman plays a brainless cop who concludes on the one funny scene. Ed O'Neill plays a sleazy station manager who sleeps with Kudrow on the side. Theme of greed is evident but this is ultimately Travolta's unlucky number. Score: 3 / 10

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!

Adam Resnick? Fresh off a Pulitzer Prize perhaps? Hardly. Do not rent or see this movie. Just do not do it. It is the most totally uninspired, totally worthless piece of tripe to rub off the hands of Nora Ephron ever.And Nora? Nora! Nora! What do you think you're doing? Only making money, bringing home a paycheck? OK, fair enough - but is the best you can do? Really? No one believes you, Nora. Harry/Sally and then Seattle - and since then? Exactly. A two hit wonder? DUH.There's no risk of plot spoilers here because there's nothing to spoil. Travolta, Kudrow, Michael Moore????? Ed O'Neill, Bill Pullman encoring his performance as Daryl Zero and absolutely nothing more, a cast of thousands and a waste of ammo.According to the IMDb this turkey cost 65 cool ones to make and only made back ten of them. That's about as unlucky numbers as you can get.It's a shame the IMDb don't allow a user rating of zero because a '1' implies a movie has at least some value, and this one has nothing, absolutely nothing.Sit down, heck why worry about a premise, just write stuff as it doesn't come to you, make it up as you go along, introduce dei ex machina like a swarm of locusts - who cares?The losers who backed this movie care. They're not likely to put their money on Resnick or Ephron ever again. Right move if they do it. You do the right thing too: see something else. Anything. It can't get this bad. The odds are against it. Does it matter this is 'based' on a real life story? 'Hey sorry the movie sucked but did you know it's based/inspired on a real life story?' Whack!

A great comedy! I think some others were dissapointed that the movie/characters were not more complex (Probably due to seeing Travolta after Pulp Fiction, eh?), but again -- this is a comedy.The movie reminded me slightly of Seinfeld, due to the character's interaction with each other and the small quirks of the characters creating the final outcome. (ie: making something out of nothing!)I particularly enjoyed the Lazy Cop character for some reason, or perhaps related to him. :)