Lucky Numbers (2000)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Strong and Moving!

Some things I liked some I did not.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Starts out with verve and laugh-out-loud bits of insight, but ultimately turns into a bit of a mess.Great work by the acting talent. Fun to see Michael Moore take direction well and deliver the goods. A pleasure to see Maria Bamford. Richard Schiff back in his element. But a little disappointing to see all the fine talent turned to serve a film whose arc veers a bit off course; also too bad to hear the occasional poorly turned dialog coming out of the talents' mouths.I think the writer was trying to go for the Coen Bros' "thing"--that caper-gone-awry elan... In the hands of the Coens, it dances on that fault line between universal morality and human frailty: Here, it just comes off like the rolling out of interminable schtick.The production work is fine; great sound, editing, cinematography, etc.Watch it? Eh... If you're aching to see the actors doing their best (I would say Lisa Kudrow never looked more locked in to a role), give it a spin. Don't watch it if you feel burned after watching a production that lacks high narrative integrity or a moving mythic dimension.

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!

I've just watched it again and I only reconfirmed that this gem deserves a place at the top of your lists. This is class. A light, entertaining, very well shot film. And what a cast. This is the second best cast I've ever seen in any movie after Glengarry Glen Ross! I mean Ed O'Neill! Tim Roth! Michael Moore! How can you fail a comedy starring these guys? And on top of that John Travolta, Bill Pullman and Lisa Kudrow deliver hilarious performances and prove how great actors they are. The scenario is witty but this is mainly an actors' movie. Moreover, it's obvious they had great fun making this. If I had to choose the best part it would be the grimaces of Bill Pullman. Respect to the man for making me fall out of the couch laughing! Unbelievable that such a fine movie has an overall rating of 5, while complete flops get a 7 or an 8. Makes me wonder of the standards of voters here. What did you want guys? More gratuitous sex and gore? More tasteless jokes? Well you'd better reconsider your priorities because this IS a good movie.

Ok I didn't compleatly hate this movie, I liked everything up to the point where they won the lottery then the whole thing took a tragic nose dive. I can't put into words why I didn't like it after that point. I guess it might just be that there wasn't enough material here to make a film. Were offered many interesting characters for a few minutes, then most of them die. Lisa Kudrow has proven herself as a great character actress (like in the opposite of sex, analize this, romy and michell, friends) she was IMHO the only saving grace in this movie.