Seven Times Lucky (2004)

Absolutely Fantastic

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I rented this film because there was a lot of buzz about it a few years back. It was shot in my hometown (Winnipeg, Canada).Unfortunately, the makers of this film clearly ripped off the main characters and most of the plot points from the classic French caper "Bob le flambeur". "Bob le flambeur" is a classic and a much better film. The producers should be making royalty payments to the Jean-Pierre Melville estate."Seven Times Lucky" is a mediocre film, and has some obvious weaknesses, mainly being a miscast lead Kevin Pollack. I cannot see Pollack in a million years in a relationship with the twenty-three years younger Liane Balaban. Balaban has a solid performance in this film, but I can not recommend renting it.

Film Noir has not existed since the sixties, but filmmakers are incorporating the aspects of the genre into new films. Examples include Fargo, Se7en, L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Memento, Reservoir Dogs, and Sin City.Canadian Gary Yates has written and directed a film that reminds us of the old days with the low lights and hard criminals, but in a comedy of cons conning cons. It may take a scorecard to figure out who is conning who, but viewers will be thrilled with the ending.Kevin Pollack (The Usual Suspects) and Liane Balaban lead this quirky and enjoyable film with a great supporting cast that will keep you guessing.

This movie gives itself away as Canadian-made long before the suitcase of $CDN 100's is shown - it's low-budget, tight, low-key, relatively nonviolent, and features at least one name Hollywood actor or actress (artsy, or B-list) to give it some box-office appeal. Hence the movie features Kevin Pollack, a short, nebbishy character actor, who shows he's capable of carrying a certain type of flick by himself, in this case as an intelligent, hard-boiled grifter who doesn't let his emotions get in the way of doing business. Does having an aboriginal as a heavyweight villain make a movie distinctly Canadian? I'm not sure, but it's a refreshing change from post-Soviet Russian gangsters.In this movie each scam sets up another with various irresistible hockable valuables turning up to sweeten the pot and lure the crooked types involved. It all begins with a "sure bet" on the horses, and as the movie's characters are introduced at a goodly pace, we begin to wonder about which character is setting up which. Or are they scamming? The movie also does well with the subtleties and then the revelations about the various partnership combinations. Was it love - or just a scam?

I didn't get it and I paid real close attention.I think they were going for more of a feel than an actual outcomes based production vis a vis a storyline that one can grasp.The intentional distortion of the time era via props and costuming further served to undo the film.Kevin Pollack is totally and completely wasted. His alternating between glibness and melodrama took things down even further as did the chronic overcast skies of Winnipeg. He even looked, very briefly, like Groucho Marx in You Bet Your Life.It's not worth the time, and I say that feeling badly because I sensed that they were really shooting for something specially and came up way short.