I know we've all been anxiously awaiting an Iraq war movie told as a buddy roadtrip comedy romp through the American Midwest. And now, the waiting has finally paid off.
The Lucky Ones is a tin-eared attempt at infusing levity into the lives of three Army soldiers on leave from Iraq. Too bad writer/director Neil Burger (The Illusionist) has a feel for comedy like Clay Aiken has for fooling people, and the screenplay is an absolute mess of contrived situations that range from the mildly stupid to the outrageously unrealistic.
The film follows Cheever (Tim Robbins,) T.K. (Michael Peña), and Colee (Rachel McAdams,) three soldiers who find themselves stranded at JFK airport after a blackout grounds all the planes. T.K. and Colee are headed to Vegas, Cheever to St. Louis; and when Cheever rents a car to get home, T.K. and Colee want to tag along so they can catch a flight out of St. Louis.
"Cue the roadtrip hijinks!" the movie seems to say at this point. The gang runs into all sorts of trouble once the trip begins — they lock the keys in their rental car, they run into a gang of surly sorority girls at a dive in Indiana (probably the only time on film a bar fight will ever be even partly precipitated by an episode of America's Got Talent) and they have to dodge a twister barreling down on them in Colorado.
Each situation is more ridiculous than the last, but none of these artificial conflicts even mean anything — the solution presents itself almost immediately every time, resulting in a string of unconnected situations that have little or no consequences for the characters. To make matters worse, the film is accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like it belongs in CHiPs, and is urging the audience to laugh at every cue.
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