All things considered, the gambling movie is just about the farthest genre from the romantic comedy. For starters, almost everything about a casino – if depicted in a realistic light – is antithetical to a world where love reigns supreme. They are dark, neon-soaked places where time stands still, fortunes are lost and people gather without acknowledging each other; it’s not about the people, after all, but about the game at hand, about the chips on the table.

There’s a reason casinos have become popular locales for other types of film. The lightweight caper “Ocean’s Eleven” matched the impersonal world of poker tables and roulette wheels with the dry, methodical thinking of high-end bank robbers. And James Bond, who regularly makes his way into a casino lobby sporting a tux and ordering up a martini, is a living, breathing poker face, always surveying international criminals, and femme fatales, with through a tight, detached squint.

What “Lucky You” so resolutely fails to do is bridge the gap between two genres that really have no business mixing in the first place. Every time the action is around the poker table, the movie find some degree of traction, in the sparse dialogue of the card players, the surprising tension between father and son, eyeing each other down over poker chips, and the palpable suspense of each card flip, bringing with it the prospect of life or death.

But every time the story leaves that familiar formula, it starts slipping off the tracks, and the more Huck (Eric Bana) starts to fall for Billie (Drew Barrymore), the younger sister of one of his friends, the more preposterous the whole thing becomes. It’s a jarring sensation, to watch a ruthless card shark then turn to flirting with a would-be girlfriend, to lose a small fortune in a flurry of bets and double-downs, and then suppress that compulsion to win it all back in exchange for a Chinese dinner with a girl.

From scene to scene, Huck hardly feels like the same character, and it’s a flaw that comes to swamp the entire ship. Bana, who struggles mightily to hedge his performance somewhere between self-destructive and good-natured, ends up feeling resolutely flat. Barrymore, who must bat her eyes at a immature grown boy who doesn’t deserve it, is left looking ridiculous.

And director Curtis Hanson, who has had a winning streak unmatched by most directors in recent memory, with 1997’s gritty “L.A. Confidential,” 2000’s quiet “Wonder Boys,” 2002’s angry “8 Mile,” and 2005’s surprisingly sweet “In Her Shoes,” delivers with this his first bona fide failure, seemingly incapable of making film one match film two.

The story can be summed up rather easily. Huck, down and out on his luck and brought to pawn his mother’s wedding ring for a few extra bucks, is determined to win enough with his small stake to earn a seat at the big poker championship – a championship his father (Robert Duvall) has already won twice and looks to win a third time.

Repeatedly, though, Huck loses his temper, takes on unwise bets and loses the substantial pot of money he needs for his admittance fee. In some ways, he seems addicted, but at other times, he seems committed to freeing himself from the destructive cycle of gambling, losses and loans. Taking a breather from a table one day, he meets Billlie, who he quickly comes to fall for. But his obsession over the poker championship – his deep-seeded compulsion to show his dad that he can beat the man who walked out on both him and his mom, rips him away from his love and back to the table, the lights and the chips.

There’s the promise of a good story here, about love challenged by the nastiness of gambling addiction and familial vendettas. But something doesn’t click here as all these stories try to click together, and instead what we have is an editing nightmare, two half-stories bumping up against each other, never quite connecting. In one notable scene, Huck steals money from Billie to fund his addiction, yet later we’re supposed to believe that her faith in him has been restored. Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe she’d ever let him back into her heart after such a breach of the most basic of trusts. Gambling and love rarely mix.

by: Steven Snyder steven@zertinet.com, Published 2007-06-13