People trying to game game shows totally intrigue me for some reason, both in real life and in film. Robert Redford‘s 1994 film, Quiz Show, about the rigging of Twenty-One, a hugely popular game show, is an excellent example. Director Samir Oliveros’s The Luckiest Man in America, while not as compelling as Redford’s film, falls into that same category.
Paul Walter Hauser, one of the best character actors working right now, stars as Michael Larson, a sad-sack ice cream truck driver, who has figured out how to win on the CBS game show, Press Your Luck.
It’s 1984 and when we first meet Larson, he’s weaseled his way into an audition for the show by pretending to be someone else. The producers (David Strathairn and Shamier Anderson) quickly figure this out and give him the boot. But Strathairn’s Bill Carruthers senses something in the soft-spoken, disheveled guy and, against Anderson’s Chuck, lets him appear on the show.
He then starts winning. And winning. And winning. The guy doesn’t stop. He really is the luckiest man in America. Soon though, they find out what’s really happening. He has somehow figured out that the show had a series of five patterns that it kept going back to over and over and over again. It never changed. Larson memorized the patterns and used that to his advantage, winning over $100,000.
The cast is terrific. Some of the smaller roles are inhabited by some really good actors like Maisie Williams as a PA and James Wolk as one of the crew members. Walton Goggins plays the host, Peter Tamarkin, who is both cheesy and almost checked out at the same time. By the way. Is he having a great year or what? Fallout, The White Lotus and now this. Strathairn is his usual and dependable awesomeness and Anderson, who I can’t recall seeing before, is terrific as well. There’s a moment right after he’s thrown under the bus by Carruthers that the camera just stays on his face stays. on his face. Oliveros’s could have held on it longer because it just told us so much of what was going on.
But really, this movie relies on Hauser’s performance and what a performance it is. Hauser can play misfits like the best of them, and this one definitely falls into that category. He looks like a bear of a man, with hair that looks like he went to Heat Miser’s hairstylist and a beard that seems to cover his whole face. While playing the game, he’s focused and confident, but as soon as that stops, he’s almost meek and painfully mild mannered. This guy should be in everything.
Co-written by Oliveros and Maggie Briggs, the film loses momentum towards the third act but picks back up shortly before the end. It’s fun and satisfying and thanks to the cast, you won’t get a Whammy. If you check it out, you’ll know what I mean.
