Latest news with #TheLuckiestManinAmerica
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Colombia Is Thriving, But Locals Worry About Tariffs
For Juan Pablo Solano and his production company Jaguar Bite, making movies like the Paul Walter Hauser starrer The Luckiest Man in America, directed by Bogotá native Samir Oliveros, or TV series like the Don Cheadle-directed The Big Cigar in Colombia is a way of life. However, proposed U.S. tariffs on audiovisual content could drastically affect the industry that helped cultivate his career. 'Jaguar Bite lives through the international productions that come into the country. Eighty to 90 percent of them are from the U.S.,' he says of his company, founded in 2018. 'When I heard about the tariffs, I thought about those movies that probably won't be made anymore. We make certain films that in the U.S. would be impossible to make because the cost doesn't allow them to exist — independent films that need to find alternatives on where to shoot.' More from The Hollywood Reporter Luke Evans Joins Noomi Rapace in Thriller 'Traction' 'Left-Handed Girl' Review: Striking, Sean Baker-Penned Drama Sketches Compelling Portrait of Mothers and Daughters in Taiwan Erin Kellyman and June Squibb Formed a Real Friendship While Working on Scarlett Johansson's Cannes Movie One such film is 2023's The Long Game with Dennis Quaid, shot in Texas and Colombia. It's based on a true story about a group of Mexican-American youths in the 1950s who were golf caddies at an all-white country club in Del Rio, Texas — where they were not allowed to play — and became the 1957 state champions playing for their all-Latino school team. 'Making that movie here and in the U.S. allowed it to hit the needed budget to come out in theaters, and later on, on Netflix. These movies would disappear because I don't see how you can make them in the U.S,' he says. Solano has Proimágenes Colombia and the local incentives to thank for productions like The Long Game. The non-profit promotes Colombian cinema internationally and acts as the National Film Commission to attract international producers to film in the country. Proimágenes, founded in 1998, administers The Film Development Fund (FDC), which began in 2003 and provides financial incentives and cash rebates to productions. Colombia offers two types of film incentives. The FFC (Colombia Film Fund, established in 2013) is a cash rebate equivalent to 40 percent of the audiovisual services expenses and 20 percent of the logistical services expenses (hotel, food and transportation) available to films produced or postproduced in Colombia. The FFC's resources are allocated each year in the national Colombian budget. The most popular is the CINA, Certificates of Audiovisual Investment in Colombia (established in 2020), which are tax credits equivalent to 35 percent of the expenses of foreign audiovisual production, including films, series, reality shows, video clips, video games and commercials for audiovisual services and logistical services contracted with Colombian individuals or legal entities. The CINA is transferable to Colombian income-tax filers and functions as an income tax discount. Silvia Echeverri, head of the Colombian Film Commission at Proimágenes Colombia, has worked alongside director Claudia Triana since the beginning. She says that before 1998, only one or two films were produced in Colombia yearly, and there was no governmental support. 'The incentive system has been very successful and has put Colombia on the international map.' Solano credits the incentives and Proimágenes' work over the years for helping him build a career. 'When the 814 film law was created in 2003, many people started working in filmmaking. Our first films came from the benefit of that incentive. I went to Argentina to attend film school. Then I went to the U.K. to do a master's in business, thanks also to some benefits of that film incentive law that paid a good portion of my scholarship.' Part of Echeverri's job for the past 27 years has been attracting productions to the country through a promotion plan that includes visiting Los Angeles annually to meet with studio and independent production companies to educate them on the incentive program. 'We tell them about our crews, we tell them about our incentives, about our locations and all the ways the Film Commission works with the Ministry of Culture to support the audiovisual productions,' Echeverri says. The Commission also visits content markets in Miami, Cancun, Gamescom — as the incentive also covers video games — and co-organizes the Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM). They also hosts familiarization trips to showcase the country's best asset, its landscape diversity. 'We bring executives from different companies around the world to visit Colombia, and we take them to Bogotá, Medellin, Cartagena … they also experience Colombia's infrastructure. We have a coast on the Pacific and a coast on the Atlantic Ocean, and there are many different altitudes with different climates all year long,' Echeverri says. 'Bogotá is a city that's 2,600 meters above sea level, so the trees you see are pine and eucalyptus, and it's a very cold weather city. But if you travel for an hour or 45 minutes to the outskirts, it's completely different scenery, a vibrant green, jungle-like location.' Proimágenes Colombia shows off the rental houses and production companies. 'Now, we have all the equipment needed for a production offered by those rental houses. And the post-production and VFX in the country have also grown. We have a studio partially owned by a company in Canada called Folks,' Echeverri says. She points out that you can also be incentivized if you shoot elsewhere but do post-production in Colombia. Narcos kicked off the Colombian content boom in 2015, and while the show could not qualify for the tax credit at that time because it didn't exist for TV, Colombia was very much part of the series' fabric. (The first two episodes did receive an incentive as a film.) 'I had been an independent producer and someone who has shot in a lot of countries around the world,' says producer Carol Trussell (True Blood, Roswell). 'I went to work as head of production for Gaumont and they were producing Narcos. I decided to go down and look at Colombia. I came back and said to Netflix, 'I think this is where we should shoot the project.' And that was agreed, and we were there for three years. It was a great experience.' Solano created Jaguar Bite with several film industry colleagues to strengthen the services for international productions coming to Colombia. 'We started with Running with the Devil starring Nicolas Cage and Laurence Fishburne. Since then, we haven't stopped. We are fortunate to work with independent producers from the U.S. and around the globe, as well as the studios.' Jaguar Bite finds locations with Colombia standing in for countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, Uganda, Mexico and Cuba; gears up a full bilingual crew; and manages the incentive application, which Solano calls one of the most reliable in the region. 'We request the necessary documents, complete the application and submit it,' he says. 'We submit all the accounting and what the film commission needs after an audit company checks that we've made the payments according to law and what the incentive requires. The Colombian incentives are reliable, and they are the ones people trust. It has never failed.' Jaguar Bite is also developing Spanish-language content for streamers and employs 35 people in Colombia and two in Mexico City. Paramount and Netflix also have offices in Colombia and are creating original programming. 'Several production companies in Colombia have started offering their services worldwide and creating their own content. We have won prizes and have been recognized in major festivals,' Echeverri says. 'We have a Colombian film on the official selection at Cannes that we're very proud of, Un Poeta,' The Poet. The film commission touts 100 Years of Solitude, which Netflix produced with Colombian company Dynamo, as its biggest success to date. Recent projects filmed in Colombia include the feature Shadow Force, with Omar Sy and Kerry Washington, from Lionsgate and Dynamo (made with a CINA in 2022) and the horror film Rosario from Jaguar Bite, which made use of the FFC in 2023. Of course, all this could change with the looming threat of tariffs, but Solano says they are business as usual for now. 'We're waiting to see what's happening, how this could be implemented and what it would mean. There is very little information. Certain movies cannot be shot in the U.S. Some will travel because of the locations and the cultural aspects needed from different places. Right now, we are looking at how we strengthen our benefits for local production so that we are not too dependent on international production.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
National Observer
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- National Observer
MOVIES: Rust with Alec Baldwin finally arrives but can't shake the accident he caused
The big news, shocker actually, in the movie world this week was Donald Trump's plan to impose a 100% tariff on some movies. So called runaway productions seem to be the main target. Films that could have been made in the US but went elsewhere to save money. Hello BC, Ontario and many other places. Think how often Vancouver has played Seattle, and Toronto has pretended to be Chicago. Marvel movies generally film in the UK. It goes on and on. How it'll work is not clear at all. The best outline of the plan that I've read so far is at the entertainment website DEADLINE which reported on the ideas Trump got from the actor Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, etc. etc.). You can read about them here: Hollywood North will hurt but so will the streamers like Netflix and the smaller independent films especially will really hurt. There'll be fewer of those made, I've seen predicted. Ironically several are on my list today, although I start with this: Rust: 3 Marcella: 3 ½ The Luckiest Man in America: 4 Clown in a Cornfield: 2 ½ Lucky Star: 3 ½ Unit 234: 3 Fight or Flight: 3 RUST: Alec Baldwin escaped the involuntary murder charge but his movie remains seriously damaged. Who can think about anything else but that he fired the gun that killed a woman cinematographer during the filming? How many want to see the film? That's too bad because, even though it has problems, it has some good ideas and nicely recreates the atmosphere of classic western movies. It starts like Shane and then shows a dark side of the old west, like Unforgiven, maybe. 'The only order that exists in this world is the order that we impose,' says one character. There's not enough in this story. Baldwin plays Harland Rust who has a sketchy and violent history but tries to atone by doing right. He breaks his grandson (Patrick Scott McDermott) out of jail to save him from hanging after a false conviction for accidentally shooting a rancher. Since he had had arguments with him, the court took the easy route and assumed it was a deliberate act. Rust offers to take him to Mexico and off they ride with a hopped-up sheriff's posse and fanatical bounty hunters in pursuit. The script brings in ideas that it doesn't integrate. A woman lawyer and distant relative (Frances Fisher) arrives but doesn't do much. There's talk on the ride south about Indian territory and wrongs done there, but only talk. And through the whole film there are biblical references, like a bounty hunter's assertion that he is 'God's angel of wrath.' Oddly, there's also a reference to Plato. And, of course, more gunplay, plus an ironic bit. Rust shows how to properly handle a gun. Joel Souza directed the film. Not all of it though. He was wounded by Baldwin's shot. (In theaters) 3 out of 5 MARCELLA: Many a home kitchen library contains the book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and it is cited as 'definitive.' The woman who wrote it, Marcella Hazan, is credited with teaching people in North America about the best of Italian cuisine and with her simple recipes learn how to cook it. This film tells you who she was. Born in Italy, worked as a teacher, brought to the US in the 1950s by the man she married, Victor Hazan, who had already been living there and met her when he went back for a visit. She had two science degrees but in the US her lack of English held her back. As a housewife she was eager to please her husband and learned to cook. That had always been inside her, she said, and just needed to come out. Then she held small cooking classes which Craig Claiborne at the New York Times noticed and promoted. Julia Child noticed too, introduced her to her publisher and Marcella, with her husband doing the writing, produced the first book that's become so classic. Those are bare facts, which include a return to Italy, for a while running a cooking class there and then a return to the US, to Florida. We get to appreciate what drove her. Part of that was overcoming a childhood accident that permanently maimed one of her hands. She refused to let that deter her, according to people in the film, including her son Giuliano, who has become a cookbook author himself. The other part was her love of Italian culture and food and her compulsion to see it done right. Foodies will love this film. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5 THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA: You'll have a very entertaining hour and half watching this true story and get a touching personal story as well. It's set in 1984 when a hapless overweight guy (Paul Walter Hauser ) who modestly describes himself as an air conditioning repair man and an ice cream truck driver applies to be a contestant on a CBS-TV game show called Press Your Luck. One of the producers (David Strathairn) recognizes a potential audience favorite and puts him on fast. He's watched the show often with his daughter. He knows it and starts winning. And keeps winning. Over $100,000 the last time I noticed. The TV executives are alarmed. How can he do it? Is he cheating? Can they forget the audience and stop him? While that's going on, we sense there's a story behind it all. During a break, he wanders into another studio and into a live interview where he talks about feeling rejected by people he loves. We later learn that appearing on the show is a solution for him, but in a surprising way. The film which started out light and comical turns plaintive and affecting. Samir Oliveros directed; Walton Goggins plays the show MC and there's an unexpected cameo by Johnny Knoxville, of all people. (Now available from several digital services) 4 out of 5 CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD: It was Roger Ebert who named the genre: 'the dead teenager movie.' It, and its variations, is back. A new Final Destination arrives next week, I Know What You Did Last Summer soon after, and this matter-of-course example, now. Teens go for them. They deal with generational divide, disrespect from adults and their own feelings of victimhood. What better way to show all that than getting them terrified and killing them off one by one. The deaths here aren't as graphic as in some of these films; they come suddenly and startle more than gross out. And they're often combined with or surrounded by humor. The film is milder than some, as directed by Eli Craig. He made it in Winnipeg, lives in Vancouver and incidentally, is a son of Sally Field. (Off topic, but fun to mention). Based on a popular novel, the film gives us Quinn (Katie Douglas) who, after her mother dies, moves with her dad from Philadelphia to a small mid-western town where he becomes the local doctor. She gets mixed up with a cool crowd at school including a rich boy (Carson MacCormac) and a blonde girl who resents her arrival. A teacher criticizes her unfairly and the local sheriff (Will Sasso, also from B.C.) advises her to stay away from that crowd. The problem is they mock the town, once the home of a syrup factory, now burned down. The teens produce U-tube videos showing its former mascot as a killer clown. Then it appears for real, first in a video, then in the cornfield where the teens go to play and then several at once coming out from the corn plants. The deaths follow but a later attempt to put a deeper meaning and explanation to all this is too sketchy. The killings are the main attraction. (In theaters) 2 ½ out of 5 LUCKY STAR: The Chinese are avid gamblers. By reputation anyway. This film based in Alberta takes up that idea as background to a family drama that could take place in any culture. That's even though the characters are all Chinese and the writer-director, Gillian McKercher, is half-Chinese. The story could resonate anywhere. The father in this family (Terry Chen) has been convinced to give up his gambling addiction. He's asked about it constantly and says, yes, he's not gone back. But as the owner of small repair shop, he's short of money and his problems just keep coming. His wife (Olivia Cheng) asks if he's paid the mortgage, the suggestion clearly is that he's liable to miss doing that. His car is towed and he can't get it back until he pays all his outstanding parking tickets. When he's pressed about what he owes on his income tax, he falls for a scam. He borrows money, sends it off but it disappears. That draws him back to gambling. He finds a high-stakes game but is warned that the host 'can be a hard ass.' The real crux of this story is what it does to his family. McKercher says in Chinese society that would be secret, not talked about outside. Here, the wife takes a stand. This is a very smart film with no easy answers. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5 UNIT 234: Do you like movies with twists and surprises? Check this one out because here they keep coming. Several people turn out not to be what you think. Incidents are not what they seem. And a note in the end credits could also qualify as a surprise. It says this is a Canadian film, set in Florida but filmed in the Cayman Islands. I wonder what Trump and Voight would think of that. The story takes place in a venue that's unusual in the movies: a self-storage facility. In one unit there a man found unconscious on a stretcher. He's got a wound; a kidney has been taken from him. The young woman who owns the place (Isabelle Fuhrman) and wants to keep it going to honor her father who left it to her is stuck working alone this weekend and having to deal with this problem. It immediately gets worse. Some thugs want the man's body; they're sent by a businessman played by Don Johnson and we think we know why because he's coughing repeatedly. When the comatose man (Jack Huston) comes to and asks 'Where am I?' we get his story, something about organ transplants for profit, his rare blood type and being passed from buyer to buyer. Even that doesn't explain much as we later find out. Or as one character says: 'We're all guilty of something.' The movie, directed by Andy Tennant, is improbable but compelling. (Video on demand) 3 out of 5 FIGHT OR FLIGHT: Here's a film that doesn't bother with sublety, character development or even explanation. Action is what is has to draw you in, from a frenetic fight on an airplane at the start to an over-the-top bit of ultraviolence at the end. And a mystery in between that's so improbable that it's almost absurd. But don't let that dissuade you. This is a brisk bit of fun. Josh Hartnett stars as a disgraced ex-intelligence agent for the US now moping and drinking in Bangkok. But the woman who caused his ouster from the CIA (Katee Sackhoff) now needs him back. She has no one else in Bangkok on short notice. She offers to clear his reputation if he just does this: get on a plane for San Francisco (a passport is e-mailed) and find a computer hacker called The Ghost who'll be on the same flight. Seem like everybody has heard that too and there are several assassins who'll also be on that plane. Josh has to keep the Ghost alive. It's the kind of story screenwriters dream up. First-time director James Madigan, who's background is in special effects, delivers it with a propulsive pace, lots of on-board intrigue and sprightly dialogue. Josh associates with two of the in-flight crew (Charithra Chandrand Danny Ashok)--who turn out to be suspicious--and fights off attacks by the assassins in various areas of the plane. Not much realism here but lots of action and comedy. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'The Luckiest Man in America' tells the story of an ice cream truck driver who cracked a game show's code, infuriated executives and won big
The movie The Luckiest Man in America imagines what it would have been like to be behind the scenes of a game show in the 1980s when one contestant is on an unparalleled hot streak. It's about the real-life game Press Your Luck, which aired on CBS between 1983 and 1986. In each episode, three contestants compete to answer multiple-choice trivia questions, and for each correct answer they are given three chances to press a button to stop the circulation of lights on the Big Board. They would earn prizes based on wherever the light stopped. In 1984, an ice cream truck driver with a fondness for get-rich-quick schemes named Michael Larson studied the show long enough to discover that even though it seemed like the lights were flashing randomly over the Big Board, there were actually only five patterns — a few of which included spots that were guaranteed to earn him money. He figured out how to guarantee a win every time, avoiding a "whammy" that would eliminate his winnings. Though typical contestants walked away with about $14,000, Larson scored a $110,237 haul that led CBS officials to accuse him of cheating. After an investigation, it was determined that he didn't cheat, and he got his money, though he wasn't allowed to return to the show because he exceeded its winnings limit. In The Luckiest Man in America, Larson is portrayed by Paul Walter Hauser. Samir Oliveros, who directed and co-wrote the movie, became captivated by Larson's story after finding a VHS recording of Press Your Luck while thrift shopping. "I started watching the clip, and I was like, 'Oh this is really good!'" he told Yahoo Entertainment. "What attracted me was seeing Michael and knowing he was probably hiding something, but he was putting on a facade for the show. When the cameras were turned off, he was probably a completely different person ... somebody that just makes very bold decisions." Oliveros became obsessed with what might have been happening behind the scenes in the control room during commercial breaks, in the time between tapings and after Larson left the stage. The film has a solemn tone at first, and then excitement builds as Larson continues to win. Oliveros said the goal was to convey that Larson's hot streak was "good for the episode but bad for finances." Bill Carruthers Jr., whose father created Press Your Luck, served as a creative consultant for the film and gave the crew plenty of background insight into what would have been happening behind the scenes. "He would tell us that the control room at the time was crazy ... it was like headless chickens," Oliveros said. He added that he had to personally track down Carruthers to get his help, but when he finally found him, Carruthers said he had been "waiting for this call for 40 years." To Oliveros, this isn't just a story of a con man who hacked the system to drain a game show of its funds. It's inspirational. He said he hopes the film inspires viewers to "take bigger risks." "I feel like Michael was somebody that would just go around his life making big, bold choices. People don't do that anymore. People like the security of a nine-to-five," Oliveros said. "But Michael had a dream. The way he accomplished that dream was a little unorthodox, but he made it happen." is in theaters April 4.
Forbes
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Paul Walter Hauser On Keeping It Real As ‘The Luckiest Man In America'
Paul Walter Hauser in Samir Oliveros' 'The Luckiest Man In America.' Emmy-winning actor Paul Walter Hauser, the lead of game show drama The Luckiest Man in America, came close to life imitating art and being a contestant himself. It was just one of the things he did to try to get by before making it in Hollywood. "I did so much stupid stuff for money back in the day," he recalls as we chat over Zoom. "I took a job once in my hometown dressing up as Chester Cheetah, the icon from the Frito Lay snack and walked around a Walmart handing out stickers or tattoos to kids to promote Cheetos. I got an offer to go on a game show at one point, and I was going to do it, but then they found out I didn't live in LA, and they rescinded the offer, even though I was willing to travel to go." "I remember I told my buddy Brian Huskey that I needed a place to crash in LA. He said, 'I wish I could help you out, but I can't have guests right now,' however he said, 'Let me ask some of my friends.' Ed Helms got back to him and said, 'Yeah, your buddy can stay at my place. I'm shooting The Hangover 2,' or whatever it was. It was crazy that Ed Helms didn't even know me but was willing to let me crash at his place because I was friends with Brian, who is very funny, by the way." Set in the 1980s, The Luckiest Man in America, which lands in theaters on Friday, April 4, 2025, is based on the true story of Michael Larson, an unemployed ice cream truck driver who appeared on Press Your Luck after working out how to game the system. Hauser plays Larson and heads an ensemble cast that boasts The White Lotus' Walton Goggins, Sneakers' David Strathairn, and Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams, to name a few. "David is very much slept on by Hollywood," the Black Bird actor says in awe. "The guy is incredible, but I think he gets overlooked because he's selfless. David's not a showy, 'look at me' guy. He's a workhorse actor who's as good as any of them, and when you give them a lead role, like in Good Night and Good Luck, you see him at his highest potential. His greatest powers are unleashed. We were lucky to have those guys drop in and do this. It felt like we got so many wins, with people saying yes to this. Maybe it was because it was during the strike, and we were one of the ones that caught the SAG waiver, but I look at the cast on the poster right now, and I'm like, 'How did we get all these people?' No pun intended; they were game for it, wanted to play, were hungry to act, and knew this was the cool piece to be in. It really elevated the film." David Strathairn in 'The Luckiest Man in America.' Hauser, who will be seen in The Naked Gun reboot with Liam Neeson and The Fantastic Four: First Steps this summer, relished playing quirky con man Larson and made the most of the opportunity to focus his performance on one 48-hour period of the contestant's life. "It was nice because we couldn't distill it to where he was at that exact time without knowing the full chronology of his lifetime. I knew more about the scandal and some of the tactics that went into it, but I didn't know a lot about his personal life," the actor says. "We definitely echo truth in that he had a daughter who had a birthday around that time. He was not totally in the kids' lives, and he eventually wound up with three different children from three different women and was not very accountable to them all. We took some liberties, and added some drama to the story by having it be a little more pressing in the moment and putting him in a predicament while he's trying to pull off this grift, as it were. I clung to the story, but the Game Show Network documentary on the topic was very influential for me and the rest of the cast members to dive in and get the inside track on some of the folks who were there that day." Hauser leans into Larson's almost cartoony persona and physicality, saying it was "less of a choice and more of something I noticed in the actual footage." "There are moments where the hands look wild, and he looks almost unhinged because he's so undignified in his celebrations. I thought that was interesting. How does he sit in the chair? Is he making eye contact with anybody? You try to find the little things, and hopefully, they can be indicative of greater truths." Paul Walter Hauser in 'The Luckiest Man in America.' Hauser, also known for star turns in Cruella and Cobra Kai, considers the film's production team to be "a top two best crew" that he has worked with in his 15 years in the industry. "Their enthusiasm and their artistry was unparalleled," he enthuses. "They all had the same vision as the director. Usually, you see the crew talk about the director behind his back and say, 'He wants to do this, but I want to do this.' This was everybody full bore with our director Samir Oliveros' vision because he really knew what he wanted. When I watch the film, I almost get distracted, and I'm worried less about my performance because I'm just looking at and marveling at the art design and the wardrobe. How did we get the period on the budget? We really stretched the dollar and got creative, and then it feels like a great time capsule piece that people will go back to." Most of the film's action occurs at the legendary CBS Studios lot in Los Angeles. However, the film wasn't shot in Hollywood, which makes the set even more impressive. "Some people really thought it was the CBS Television studio lot, but we recreated all of that on a soundstage in Bogota, Colombia," Hauser reveals. "It's a testament to the brilliant crew and the fact that they made it work on the budget we had. We priced this movie out in Los Angeles, Greece, and looked at a few locations, both typical and non-typical, but we found that our money could go way further there. They had some infrastructure from local Colombian television shows and soap operas. We loved the experience, the food, and the people. I would go back there and shoot in a heartbeat." (Left to right) Brian Geraghty, Paul Walter Hauser, and Patti Harrison in 'The Luckiest Man In ... More America.' The Luckiest Man in America also marks Hauser's first feature credit as a producer. It won't be his last. "I'm attached to several projects that I'm a producer on, like the Chris Farley movie, but this is the first time I've produced in the sense of a greater-sized project, and I've really enjoyed it," he concludes. "I saw Margot Robbie produce, I, Tonya, and her support, spirit, and choices she was making, being a part of the bigger decisions, inspired me. I've always wanted to produce and be a bigger part of it. In this case, it had more to do with casting. I brought in some of my buddies for a few different parts and had to oversee some of that. It was a really great experience."
New York Times
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The Luckiest Man in America' Review: Taking a Game Show for a Spin
The ideal way to watch 'The Luckiest Man in America,' a dramatization of a real-life game show incident, is to go in cold — to see these events unfold as TV viewers did. If you've never heard of Michael Larson, a contestant who appeared on CBS's 'Press Your Luck' in 1984, then it is best to save YouTube for later. In the movie's version of events, Michael (Paul Walter Hauser) earns his spot on the program by crashing an audition, claiming to be someone he's not. Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn), one of the show's creators, nevertheless sees star potential in his Everyman persona. Is Michael a loose cannon? The screenplay, by Maggie Briggs and the film's director, Samir Oliveros, paints him as, at minimum, maladroit. He wears shorts with his tie and jacket. A woolly hairdo and beard look more freakish on Hauser than the real Michael's did on him. The character also seems fine with bending the show's rules, like the one that forbids phone calls during breaks. Then Michael starts winning tens of thousands of dollars. And he keeps taking turns, even though each time he stands to lose it all. From here, the movie shifts into procedural mode, as the team in the control booth tries to sort out whether Michael is crazy or crafty. Shamier Anderson plays an employee who sleuths out Michael's background during the taping. Oliveros is more selective in providing access to the protagonist's thoughts. The events, and the mind games, appear to have been goosed for dramatic interest. (One preposterous, surely invented interlude finds Michael wandering onto a talk show set and baring his soul to the host, played by Johnny Knoxville.) But it is still fun to watch Michael and CBS compete for the upper hand. The Luckiest Man in America Rated R. Language unfit for daytime TV. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters.
