| JUST MY LUCK |
 2006 - USADirector: Donald Petrie
- Reviewed by Vickie
Now, I don’t expect much from a movie like Just My Luck. Just a little silly fun, some gal pals, a feel-good romantic subplot and maybe the occasional moments of wacky physical comedy thrown in to round out the shenanigans. This film has all those things, and even boasts a boppy soundtrack courtesy of band-within-the-movie McFly…so why don’t I feel satisfied? Maybe because Just My Luck feels an awful lot like Freaky Friday 2, only instead of body swapping, the gimmick here is transferable good fortune, and instead of being a blockbuster success, this movie seems like it might have made for a hit straight-to-video release. Lohan stars as Ashley, a hip New Yorker who works at a PR firm and who was born with luck so good it’s practically superhuman. Everything goes right for her, all the time. Always. No matter what the situation. She walks out into a rainstorm without an umbrella and the skies magically clear. She buys a scratch-and-win lottery ticket and walks away with a cash prize. She thinks on her feet at work and, faster than you can say “corner office!”, she gets a promotion, a company credit card and a spot on the good side of her powerful boss (Missi Pyle). At the other end of the spectrum is Jake (Chris Pine), an adorable guy who’s cursed with the world’s worst luck. Everything goes wrong for him, all the time and in increasingly catastrophic and embarrassing ways. He lives in a dive, works at a bowling alley and dreams of taking a little British band called McFly to the bigtime…if only his luck would change long enough for something, anything, to work out in his favor. Ashley and Jake’s paths cross at a masquerade ball hosted by a record-company mogul (Faizon Love). The diametrically opposed lucksters, masked of course, lock lips as strangers on the dance floor and exchange luck along with saliva. Suddenly, Jake can do no wrong and Ashley couldn’t scrape together an ounce of good luck if her life depended on it. Jake gets to soar, while Ashley crashes, burns and desperately tries to figure out how she lost her luck and, more importantly, how she can get it back. Hijinks, misunderstandings, changes of heart and the ubiquitous life lessons gleaned from walking a mile in someone else’s shoes ensue. Where the film falters is in its subtle-as-a-sledgehammer and insanely repetitive examples of good and bad luck befalling its characters. Over and over and over and over and over again, we’re reminded of what good and bad luck look like, as if the filmmakers anticipated an audience full of people with ADD who’d be unable to grasp the concepts of what it means to be lucky and unlucky. Cutting just a few of these scenes would have shaved at least 10 minutes off the movie’s surprisingly hefty running time. Ditto the number of gratuitous McFly musical interludes, rehearsals, concert performances and recording sessions. I half expected to see that the whole film was co-sponsored by their real-life record label. Adding to the meh-ness is the fact that Lindsay Lohan phones in her performance. There’s nothing exceptional or inventive about her work here and, as mentioned, it came off like a retread of some of her better roles in better films. Chris Pine is okay, but in that bland, mildly interesting, nondescript way that tells me any guy could have played his character. Just My Luck does score some stellar supporting work, though. Faizon Love is a standout and Missi Pyle (the poor man’s Elaine Hendrix) is as entertaining as ever, while Samaire Armstrong and Bree Turner are cute as Ashley’s fashionable and funky best friends. But they’re not enough to save the picture. Even though this movie will no doubt wind up in TBS’s roster of oft-run films, and even though I’m sure I’ll watch it again on some rainy Saturday morning, I didn’t love it enough to recommend you head to theater to see it. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just a bit of a let-down. Just My Luck and its five writers almost got five slices. Almost, but not quite. |
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Five writers are credited with co-creating the screenplay for this
Lindsay Lohan movie in one way or another. Five. And you know what? It
shows. Too many cooks spoiled this cinematic broth, I think.
