Review: The Lucky Ones

Neil Burger’s third feature, after the success of “The Illusionist,” is an ostensibly comic road movie that follows three disparate soldiers on thirty-day leave who are thrown together for a road trip to Las Vegas: Cheever, an older man who won’t return because of an embarrassing injury (Tim Robbins), Michael Pena as TK, a man with what he perceives as an even more embarrassing injury, and Rachel McAdams as Colee, a naïf of girlish energy who often wishes she had her “weapon” in her arms. The three actors bring solid qualities to their alternately underwritten and overwritten roles; McAdams’ dimply pluck; Robbins’ good intentions and Pena’s fretfulness. Only the first few seconds of the film take place in Iraq; the lingering aftereffect of war seems to be what the ironically titled “The Lucky Ones” subject. Yet the plotting is rife with coincidence and crude turns. The worth of a dead man’s guitar almost charms. But in the end, the swamp of contrivance grows reductive and even condescending, neither behavior that’s plausibly etched nor fully fleshed parable. The psychic damage is palpable, but the writing is deeply shallow. The landscapes are courtesy of Declan Quinn. 119m. (Ray Pride)