Rented from Blockbuster. Watched while eating Papa Murphy's Gourmet Chicken Garlic pizza which, by the way, has gone way down in quality and flavor during the past 5 years we've ordered it. (Heads up, Papa!)
OK. So the first thing that attracted me to this movie was Tim Robbins on the front cover looking sort of muscle-ly in a white tee shirt. Then the 5 stars caught my eye, I read the back cover and decided to believe the raving reviews this time, especially since this movie was not a box office hit, if it even did make it to the theatres. I'd never heard of it.
It was great. A movie about a relationship between 3 Army soldiers on 30 day leave. Two males and one female who, though a series of transportation issues, end up traveling together cross country. The movie is about how they relate, who they run in to, mishaps, laughs and upsets. Each soldier has a service related injury that figures into the story to varying degrees. There are tender moments, crass moments, sad moments and funny moments.
Tim Robbins, who, in real life is married to Susan Sarandon (the Hollywood star that has gone to jail on principal), is a peace activist (as is Susan, hence her jail stint). So it's strange to me that he plays a straight forward Army soldier (Fred Cheaver) and there are no overtly impassioned negative statements that carry an underlying message. This is probably because, although he and his spouse are peaceniks, he realizes that soldiers are just people who sometimes enlist for reasons having nothing directly to do with wanting to fight and put themselves in danger for their country - it just happened that they got to do just that after they enlisted. So, this movie is sympathetic to military personnel for the most part and, certainly so to these three personnel.
Rachel McAdams plays Colee, a sort of bubble headed little tough girl who is really quite sweet. She's probably a lot cuter than most girls who enlist, but hey, American movies are rarely able to show real people or no one would go to see them. Whatever the case, she is great in the part and does a wonderful job.
T.K. Poole is very aptly played by Michael Pena. T.K. is an intelligent, caring, tough on the outside, but heart of gold kind of guy. He gives you the impression that he has got it all together and knows just what he is going to do with his life, which turns out to be only partly true. You get the impression he was raised in a rough setting, but one where his family unit survived and thrived. It would have been easy for the storyline to have he and Colee to "get it on" and for the movie to be cheapened by the experience. As it is, they have an attraction that is obvious, but only slightly approached. We figure that maybe, sometime in the future, if they both live, they may come back together for a lifetime.
All in all, there are many very good moments in this movie. It was rated R. There is some language as you expect from soldiers, there are some sexual things also. The movie wouldn't be good without them, I'm afraid. When these types of things are realistic to the story being told and not just there because someone wanted to be sure all their Hollywood friends would think that they were "trashy and cool", I feel they can be justified as long as it doesn't get to be too "in your face".
OK. So the first thing that attracted me to this movie was Tim Robbins on the front cover looking sort of muscle-ly in a white tee shirt. Then the 5 stars caught my eye, I read the back cover and decided to believe the raving reviews this time, especially since this movie was not a box office hit, if it even did make it to the theatres. I'd never heard of it.
It was great. A movie about a relationship between 3 Army soldiers on 30 day leave. Two males and one female who, though a series of transportation issues, end up traveling together cross country. The movie is about how they relate, who they run in to, mishaps, laughs and upsets. Each soldier has a service related injury that figures into the story to varying degrees. There are tender moments, crass moments, sad moments and funny moments.
Tim Robbins, who, in real life is married to Susan Sarandon (the Hollywood star that has gone to jail on principal), is a peace activist (as is Susan, hence her jail stint). So it's strange to me that he plays a straight forward Army soldier (Fred Cheaver) and there are no overtly impassioned negative statements that carry an underlying message. This is probably because, although he and his spouse are peaceniks, he realizes that soldiers are just people who sometimes enlist for reasons having nothing directly to do with wanting to fight and put themselves in danger for their country - it just happened that they got to do just that after they enlisted. So, this movie is sympathetic to military personnel for the most part and, certainly so to these three personnel.
Rachel McAdams plays Colee, a sort of bubble headed little tough girl who is really quite sweet. She's probably a lot cuter than most girls who enlist, but hey, American movies are rarely able to show real people or no one would go to see them. Whatever the case, she is great in the part and does a wonderful job.
T.K. Poole is very aptly played by Michael Pena. T.K. is an intelligent, caring, tough on the outside, but heart of gold kind of guy. He gives you the impression that he has got it all together and knows just what he is going to do with his life, which turns out to be only partly true. You get the impression he was raised in a rough setting, but one where his family unit survived and thrived. It would have been easy for the storyline to have he and Colee to "get it on" and for the movie to be cheapened by the experience. As it is, they have an attraction that is obvious, but only slightly approached. We figure that maybe, sometime in the future, if they both live, they may come back together for a lifetime.
All in all, there are many very good moments in this movie. It was rated R. There is some language as you expect from soldiers, there are some sexual things also. The movie wouldn't be good without them, I'm afraid. When these types of things are realistic to the story being told and not just there because someone wanted to be sure all their Hollywood friends would think that they were "trashy and cool", I feel they can be justified as long as it doesn't get to be too "in your face".
Rating for "The Lucky Ones":
Here's the trailer.
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