Luckytown (2000) Reviews

• Luckytown blows.

  =G=2002-06-25

  Somewhere in this contrived morass of stereotypes and shoddy film making is a story with some entertainment value. Good hearted street chick meets boy gambler and they hit the road for Vegas where she meets up with her long lost dad, falls in love with her traveling companion, and both learn some lessons in life. Unfortunately, this junk flick is a laughable miscarriage with the sundry heavies more fleshed out than the protagonists. Personally, I ended up liking the hitman who refused to kill anyone on Valentine's Day more than the hero and felt more compassion for the slutty stripper than the heroine. Don't waste you time with this mess of a movie which I'm sure Dunst and Caan are trying to forget.

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• lifeless drama

  SnoopyStyle2015-05-20

  Lidda (Kirsten Dunst) leaves Tulsa, Oklahoma and her mother to find her father Charlie Doyles (James Caan), a professional gambler in Vegas. She carries around a check from him. She takes store clerk Colonel (Vincent Kartheiser) along for the ride when somebody comes collecting his debt. Colonel considers himself to be a poker player. Charlie faces old nemesis Tony in high stakes poker. Charlie is in love with stripper Sugar working in Tony's club. Jimmy works for Tony to rob and then kill gamblers. Tony's nephew Frankie arrives from Italy to be the new member of the crew. This movie is very clunky. Nobody is particularly compelling. Kirsten is grumpy and Vincent is no leading man. They don't have any chemistry. James Caan is coasting on his reputation in this movie. Luis Guzmán is a passable hit-man but he's capable of much more. This is trying to be a hard-boiled crime drama and personal drama. It doesn't have the style or any good writing. It doesn't have any thrills or tension. It stumbles on and on as the audience waits for Lidda to finally meet up with Charlie.

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• Half-naked Kristen Dunst in a Vegas Romp? Why Not?

  The_Great_And_Powerful_OZ2002-07-08

  This moive was the biggest piece of trash and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT I loved it in that guilty pleasure sort of way... in that 2 AM in the morning and you're looking for an excuse to stay awake kind of way... hoping against hope that Kirsten will finally take off her clothes, glory in her newfound abilities with the pole and dump her wussy boyfriend. I am disappointed to report, none of these things happen However, Luis Guzman kicks some ass. A surly Robert Miano (Donnie Brasco) nails the hell out of some MAXIM covergirl. Kirsten does make a pretty decent stripper. On the other hand, the direction in this movie is awful. The writer, Brenden Beseth, stumbles between Bukowski and illiteracy. The punk who plays the lead should never be allowed to act (yeah right) again. However, I liked the movie. So many films are unintentionally terrible, that this film is almost satisfying. It's not trying to elevate above the shoddy source material. It's not pretending to be anything that it's not... Luckytwn is just A BLOODY VEGAS ROMP. A little film outclassed by its heavyweight movie stars... a guilty pleasure to say the least....

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• potboiler...without enough water..Gareis plays thermonuclear babe...

  pjp-82001-08-08

  I saw the video version of LuckyTown...and it has high aspirations beyond what it was able to achieve....however, some scenes (such as those of the "road trip" sequences) could have been edited more for length....and slowed things down...I think that Kirsten Dunst cast in her role was not appropriate, as I feel that the character was not and did not evolve through her experiences...perhaps this role was a bit too early in Kirsten's carrer repetoire...James Caan's characterization was not very 3-dimensional either....not enough there for him to "turbo it up" into something one woul d expect from James like in his roles from the 1970s...but one actress stole the show (as it was)...and that was Jennifer Gareis...yowza...she plays to the hilt the "Sugar" character--a prostitute/junkie/grifter..too bad that they didn't allow for more character development...she looks really good in all theh outfits that they had her wear, and she also looks fantastic disrobed as well (a thermonuclear babe, a zoomy girl)...indeed, there is a sex scene (on top of a pool table with Miano) that should rank in the PLayboy's Top 25 Lovemaking Scenes of the last five years....additionally, there is a scene where Gareis' character disrobes and comes on to James CAan's character, and he declines her invitation! I doubt that I would have had such self control in similar circumstances.... And Luis Guzman, no matter if he is put into an excellent film or a terrible one, gives his all, and had the best overall performance in this picture of a superstitious hitman who won't kill anyone on Valnentine's DAy (the day most of the story takes place on) because previously he killed his girlfriend and her secret lover on that day...."Bad luck and things happen on this day" he observes....despite higher aspirations, this potboiler doesn't have the water to keep boiling....but I give them an A for aspirations, and a C for execution...

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• Not Writer's Fault

  dbholt_992013-02-03

  Indeed, dumb. But don't blame the writer--he had written a kick ass script before this clumsy director got involved and made him re-write it 2-3 times and sucked all the life out of it. The original script was great and had Martin Sheen set to play Charlie. The writer, fresh out of UCLA, was set to direct it. At the last minute the funding dried up and one of the actors got the script to Paul, who then took over as director. He was flush with money from a German media company. He pushed Brendan aside as director and this mess was created. Probably destroyed the confidence (and career) of a promising young writer in the process.

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