In The Luckiest Man in America, a lovable weirdo with a dark side games a game show, making him an instant celebrity while risking the jobs of those around him. Fast, entertaining and slight, the movie makes for an easy watch if you’re looking for something to fill the void that is our tiny, minuscule lives.
Paul Walter Hauser, who has quietly delivered several quality performances in recent years, plays Michael, a down-on-his-luck dude who has figured out that the random “square selection” in Press Your Luck is not so random after all.
Michael is a character who shifts between jovial, endearing and devious, a mysterious figure where it’s never clear where the truth ends and the scheme begins. Hauser plays the role effectively, arguably perfectly; he is friendly with a dark side, a man who smiles and knowingly winks simultaneously.
The movie itself asks a relatively simple question: can someone be in the wrong when they aren’t actually cheating? It’s neither profound nor particularly interesting, but it provides a solid framework upon which director and co-writer Samir Oliveros creates his movie. The Luckiest Man in America isn’t a big movie, nor is its aspirations ambitious, but that’s ok: it’s fun to watch, an amusing excerpt from an American slice of life, a backstage look at an early game show.
Five minutes of Wikipedia research suggests that while Michael, both pre- and post-Press Your Luck, lived a fairly pathetic life, The Luckiest Man in America had opportunity to dig deeper into its title character and his life. Whether this would have made a better movie is questionable, though; there’s something satisfying about letting the lens linger on this singular achievement, relish in Michael’s 15 minutes of fame.
The result isn’t the riskiest of movies, but a safely enjoyable one.
Review by Erik Samdahl.