The Worst Film Ever

Captivating movie !

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Indeed, dumb. But don't blame the writer--he had written a kick ass script before this clumsy director got involved and made him re-write it 2-3 times and sucked all the life out of it. The original script was great and had Martin Sheen set to play Charlie. The writer, fresh out of UCLA, was set to direct it. At the last minute the funding dried up and one of the actors got the script to Paul, who then took over as director. He was flush with money from a German media company. He pushed Brendan aside as director and this mess was created. Probably destroyed the confidence (and career) of a promising young writer in the process.

Do not watch this movie before operating heavy machinery. Though technically competent in many respects, Luckytown is positively soporific. It is dull and slow and lifeless. Kirsten Dunst is cutely sunny as always, but James Caan spends the entire film looking and sounding like he needs a megadose of anti-depressants. I almost had to jab myself in the groin with a hot cigarette lighter to stay awake through this thing.Charlie Doyles (James Caan) is an aging gambler who's returned to Las Vegas to take on his old rival Tony DeCarlo (Robert Miano) in a high stakes, underground poker game. Lidda (Kirsten Dunst) is Charlie's teenage daughter. He ran out on Lidda and her trashy mother years ago, leaving them in Tulsa, Oklahoma of all places. Now on her 18th birthday, Lidda runs away from home to find her dad in Vegas. Along the way, she picks up Colonel (Vincent Kartheisen), a long-haired teenage loser who fancies himself the world's greatest poker player. Yes, his actual name is Colonel. No, they never explain what the deal is with that.As Lidda and Colonel do their thing of young love and Charlie and Tony dance through their brutally simplistic conflict, there are three other characters who kind of wander around until they end up dead. There's Sugar (Jennifer Gareis), a stripper who used to screw Charlie, is now screwing Tony and pretty much screws every man she meets as substitute for small talk. Rounding things out are Jimmy (Luis Guzman) and Frankie (Frederico Da Vinci), two thugs who work for Tony and hang around being all ironic and stuff about being murderous criminals.Luckytown has a lot of naked female breasts and Dunst is always enjoyable. Those are the only good qualities of the movie. The rest isn't aggressively horrible, it's just boring as all get out. There's no energy to anything that happens here. Showing 105 minutes of an old man sleeping on a park bench would have more excitement and intensity. Much of the blame for that can be placed on Caan, who sleepwalks through every scene and monotones his way through every line. But the script by Brandon Beseth is devoid of interest and the direction of Paul Nicholas never establishes a pace or a sense of importance.Yes, Dunst does end up as a stripper at one point. No, she doesn't take off her clothes. There is a scene where she's briskly walking and you can see the boobs under her shirt bounce up and down with enough force to kill a small mouse.The only thing this film has to offer is that it might be able to cure a case of insomnia. Apart from cinema's contribution to holistic medicine, there's nothing else here.

Kirsten Dunst usually makes good choices, but this one ranks with her Crow movie as the worst. Absolutely dreadful drama about 18 year old girl who leaves home to meet her professional poker playing father (James Caan) who sends her birthday cards but was otherwise never a part of her life. There isn't a single moment in this disaster that rings true. Avoid at all costs.

As a movie, the movie sucked. It sucked in the kind of dismally bad way that only the laziest of movies can. The young male romantic interest of Kirsten Dunst ranks high in the pantheon of Characters that Should Be Killed As Soon As Possible With a Blunt Instrument - he is as likeable as the Dell Guy.However, the only reason I write is to comment on the poker scene, which takes the cake for spectacular laziness. For a movie involving two characters who are supposed to be the top two greatest poker players in the world, it would be nice if the writer had actually bothered to peruse the rudimentary structure of poker games.In the scene where James Caan plays the kid at poker, Caan is playing Texas Hold'em. The kid, however, is apparently playing 5-card draw. Caan's TWO cards face down are pocket Queens. That's unfortunate for him, because the kid has FIVE cards in his hand, which contain at least trip deuces. Let's make sure we got that. In the same hand of poker, one guy is playing a completely different form of poker than the other!! HA HA HA HA HA HA. When I saw this, I sat in stunned, giggly disbelief.This is not a little error. It is unforgiveable sloppiness, especially when you bill your movie as a Vegas, gambling movie that involves the two greatest poker players in the world. It's as if a 5th grader wrote this. If it were a sports movie, it would be like one guy playing his golf shot while his opponent, a football player, tackles him. Retarded. Just like the entire surrounding movie.