Luck of the Draw (2001)

Simply Perfect

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

ending spoiler....this was such a good movie at time it got a little bit slow but then you would get right back into it and it was great. the plot was somewhat thin but it didn't really matter in this movie everyone was corrupt and after this one guy who accidently came across stolen money plates. it has a great cast, especially ice-t, dennis hopper and michael madson among a lot of other people and it was crazy how everyone wound up crossing one another. basically it was like 6 different "groups" ran across one another and at the end, i was cracking up and blown away it was great everyone got into a whole big shootout and only one guy was left but then he suddenly realized the money wasn't there in the first place he got ripped off by his girlfriend!!! what a movie :)

Jack Sweeny is a young man just trying to get a job. Turned down at another bank due to his criminal record he meets a girl, Rebecca, but also witnesses a 3 way shootout between 2 groups of criminals and the cops over a suitcase containing perfect plates for counterfeiting bank notes. Jack grabs the plates and attempts to sell them via his friend Zippo. However with at least three different groups ready to kill him for the plates, Jack finds it's just one double cross after another.In the pitch meeting it must have sounded great, being sold as a sort of Pulp Fiction with more action and more punch. With the cast it must have looked promising – not a-list actors but a good line up of faces (just like in Pulp Fiction!). However somewhere along the line it all went wrong. Someone forgot to tell the writers and the director that this was what was wanted. So instead of an interesting tale all intertwining together, we have a daft thriller where each connection made just serves to make it all feel more convoluted and silly. I don't mind some leaps of faith, but how many unlikely events are we meant to swallow?This is made worse by the lack of fun and pace in the story. It just drags along with silly scenes providing no action or humour. Dennis Hopper shooting his own men is meant to be hilarious but it's just plain silly and a little sickening. As for the big shootouts at start and finish – they are directed with no flair and no excitement. Making the whole thing passable but certainly worth of it's UK DTV status.The cast looks good – hence my setting of the video recorder for it. However most seem to be trying to play it for laughs (without success) further undermining the film. Marshall is weak in the lead, with so much in support surely a better name could have been sought for the lead? Hopper hams it up with no thought of character – in fact no-one actually produces a character I ever cared about. Roberts clearly thinks this is a spoof of some sort. Forsythe is about as mysterious as a brick and he signposts his character's twists like he was directing traffic. Madsen seems happy just to show up and make the QT connection by riding in his car playing music from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Ice-T turns in another gangster role but he looks skinny and tired – is time catching up with him? And Patrick Kilpatrick! He looks cool and is always reliable as a heavy but does a laughable Irish accent (Belfast lad speaking!) and appears to be a terrorist of some sort (don't let the name fool you). Yet it took several goes for us to get his accent and his character is never explained even briefly – he literally just suddenly is involved in the plot!Overall this is not as bad a mess as I have made it sound as it is clearly good enough for teenage boys who just wants boobs and bangs without character or plot – a Saturday night rental if ever there was one! However to imagine how it must have appeared to those making it and seeing what the dogs dinner it became is just plain sad. Avoid.

I can agree as far as that the movie is no high quality movie, and you have seen most of the story before. However, what this movie has is a bunch of really cool actors. They're not very good actors, and they can basicly only play one role - but they're cool. So this movie makes up the shortcomings if you look at it the right way.You don't always know what is going to happen. There is no actor in the movie that really stinks (since almost all roles are played by actors that might not be the best, but they've all got lot's of experience). The action is ok but no more than that. There are a lot of Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs rip-offs but it doesn't seem so bad since they're usually in scenes starring Michael Madsen. So I recommend this movie, it's a lot better than some of the bad blockbusters.

No five words say `straight to video' quite as effortlessly as `from the director of GHOULIES'. As far as I can gather, LUCK OF THE DRAW is the only film in two decades to earn this label. Director Luca Bercovici has also gathered together a b-grade rat-pack to star in his comeback film.The video A-list come in all shapes and sizes. Michael Madsen is an acclaimed poet, and Dennis Hopper directed THE LAST MOVIE and EASY RIDER. Along with respected artists, the film boasts a bit-part for Ice T (transitional rapper), some kid apparently in GLADIATOR, and Eric Roberts, who never needed to pay cinema admission to see his own work.It starts off a bit like a b-grade rip-off of Michael Mann's HEAT, a contradiction in terms seeing as that film is the greatest of all cops & robbers pictures. It ends a little bit like.put it this way, if you haven't ever seen this ending, you spent the '90's under a rock.There are only two types of DTV films worth renting: those that are surprisingly good, or those that are woefully bad. In that sense, LUCK OF THE DRAW is a failure because it is average all the way.