A talented cast and solid production can't save Samir Oliveros's story of an underdog who managed to outsmart the system.
A clip from the actual 1984 episode of "Press Your Luck," which inspired "The Luckiest Man in America," accompanies the end credits, taken from the mid-show exchange between contestant Michael Larson and Peter Tomarken. Larson shares the kind of anecdotes that probably made a producer smile during a pre-show interview, telling Tomarken how he tried to reconcile with his daughter after missing her birthday and driving an ice cream truck the previous summer to supplement his income as an air conditioning repairman. It's good enough to fill 45 seconds of airtime, but it's hard to imagine what director Samir Oliveros did by making it the backbone of a 90-minute film covering Larson's infamous appearance on the show.
Director: Samir Oliveros
Writers: Maggie Briggs, Samir Oliveros
Stars: Shamier Anderson, Haley Bennett, Brian Geraghty
If Larson is remembered now, it's for having won $110,000 on the show by memorizing the game's Grand Chessboard algorithm to maximize his prize potential, and Oliveros is admirably more intrigued by the why than the how. Yet "The Luckiest Man in America" is designed more to answer the former question, constrained by a real-time format to capture the taping day when Larson threatened to go bankrupt. The approach should work as the show's producers scramble to figure out how this contestant from Lebanon, Ohio, outsmarted them. But even when they start digging up dirt, Oliveros and co-writer Maggie Briggs fail to easily incorporate the more interesting elements of Larson's life, from his preparation for the game to the fallout from his appearance, while trapped on the set of "Press Your Luck."
Larson may have devised a solid strategy for the game, but "The Luckiest Man in America" often has confusing calculations. With the endearing Paul Walter Hauser as Larson, it's understandable that Bill Cunningham (David Straithairn), producer of "Press Your Luck," is seduced by his carefree attitude, even knowing that Larson snuck into the casting call by taking another contestant's spot. Instead of being arrested, as Bill's colleague Chuck (Shamier Anderson) had arranged, Larson gets a call for the show, driving his ice cream truck into the parking lot of Television City in Los Angeles.
Hints of the more interesting and funny film, "The Luckiest Man in America," might appear throughout the film, when the producers end up being targeted instead of the contestant. The presence of Walton Goggins as Tomarken, Haley Bennett as Larson's wife, Patricia, Maisie Williams as the studio tour guide, and Patti Harrison and Brian Geraghty as his co-stars suggests that the film worked well enough in the script to attract such a solid cast, but not so well in its final execution, despite its best efforts. Any mystery surrounding Larson's dubious identity is dispelled almost immediately, even as the film goes to great lengths to reveal the actor's personal life and preoccupations, even going so far as to feature him on a studio talk show, where the host (Johnny Knoxville) is quick to offer him the couch to open up.
"The Luckiest Man in America" doesn't diminish the promise Oliveros showed in his feature debut, "Bad Lucky Goat," as everything in the film meshes perfectly with the film's serious, comedic tone. Cinematographer Pablo Lozano uses the dim lighting of vintage bulbs in a pre-computer era of game show productions to infuse the proceedings with darkness, while production designer Lulú Salgado's stunning recreation of the "Press Your Luck" set and surrounding studio is both thrilling and menacing.
However, when Larson plays with the knowledge of the final outcome, a sense of detachment sets in for the audience. The same is true when the film takes so many shortcuts to reach its conclusion, defying logic in the control room, where no one would think to simply shut down the show as soon as they think they have a cheater on their hands. Even after announcing with a clear disclaimer that what we're watching is a dramatization, the film is accurate in at least one respect: despite the money he's racking up, Larson never feels like a winner. With such a wealth of talent at his disposal, "The Luckiest Man in America" strangely never feels as satisfying as it should be.
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