Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Memorergi good film but with many flaws

SnoopyStyle Three Iraq vets are back in the States. Sgt T.K. Poole (Michael Pena) is going home to his fiancée in Vegas. Pvt Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) is returning her boyfriend's guitar to his family in Vegas. Sgt Fred Cheever (Tim Robbins) is retired and going home to his wife in St. Louis. The three are stranded at JFK Airport and they rent a minivan for a road trip.Rachel McAdams is oddly funny. In fact, all three actors do a good job. They have great chemistry together. It's like a three way boxing match. They fight, they laugh, they cry, and they hug. We have three solid actors doing some pretty interesting gymnastics.A lot of things happen on this trip. Some of it is too out there. Let's just say the tornado is a little too much.

kosmasp It's not about where you go ... it's about the way/road and how you are going to cross that, to get there. In other words, it's about the journey. It's about the fact, that while you are on your way, things (and maybe you) will change. It's about your flaws, about your personality and how you that will mix up with other people. It's about a story written in a great way and played by some great actors.Rachel McAdams has the looks, but she also has the talent. You might not agree with the political statements Tim Robbins makes, but you can't fault his acting abilities. I forgot the name of the third lead, but I have seen him in a quite a few movies and he does deliver here too. A story more about the people, than any political statement. And that might be something, that some people will miss out in this. Like "what is the point?".But that's exactly it. How can you explain life? How can you explain fully what you (or the characters in this case) are doing? You just can't. So the director (and screenwriter) stay true to just tell the story. And this works very fine.

dave-sturm Three soldiers back from Iraq team up and rent a car to drive to their respective destinations. Things happen to them along the way. When they get to their destinations, what they find is not what they expected.That's "The Lucky Ones" in a nutshell. But it doesn't do justice to this quirky, touching and funny film.Tim Robbins and Michael Pena give sturdy, soldierly performances, but the real story here is Rachel McAdams, who is mesmerizing as the blunt talking, somewhat naive, wounded (literally, in her thigh), deeply religious, sexually open minded and perpetually optimistic Pvt. Colee Dunn. She is a ray of pure southern sunshine and steals every scene she is in.Some highlights: A furious McAdams throws her soda on Pena when he insults her boyfriend, killed in Iraq, by saying he was unfit to be a soldier because he supposedly did armed robbery.McAdams lashes out in a bar when some valley girl-types mock her limp. "Good thing I didn't have my weapon," she says after.All three end up at an evangelical service and McAdams stands up to testify, blithely telling embarrassing secrets about her companions while they cringe.After locking their keys in the car, they trudge off for help and end up at a Hummer dealership. On the way back in a luxury Hummer, they compare this one with what they're more used to.When McAdams arrives at her dead boyfriend's family, she finds out his colorful depiction of them was somewhat embellished. What she decides to tell them about him is even more embellished to spare their feelings. In fact, this scene is so moving it is probably the highlight of McAdams acting career.Robbins is at a rich man's party and meets a beautiful woman who begins flirting with him. He asks if she's married and she says, "Umm." They both start laughing hysterically.This movie has many such moments.One lowlight: A contrived, cheap-looking tornado scene that's just in the movie to give Pena and McAdams a chance to huddle in a drainpipe, allowing a certain delightful discovery to be made. Afterward, the twister has blown the landscape to pieces, but their vehicle is untouched.Final thought: This is not an Iraq movie. This is an America movie.

RolyRoly I had tickets for this at the Toronto International Film Festival last summer but was side-tracked by an obscure little film called Slumdog Millionaire instead, so only got around to watching it last night on pay-per-view. In a strange way, the two films have a good deal in common. In an era in which everyone seems to want either tense thrillers, puerile comedies or awesome special effects (the only one here, as has been pointed out, is a cheaply put together tornado), both movies offer little more than a thoroughly improbable plot and a focus on character development. But both work remarkably well. I am puzzled by those who found that the movie dragged. While most of the plot development was telegraphed not once but several times, the acting from all three leads was both believable and very deft. At first I thought that Rachel McAdams' character was simply too naive to be true but it soon became apparent that she was much wiser than we (or even she) knew. She plays it beautifully. Tim Robbins is wonderful too, and rather pathetic, in a down-to-earth role as an aging war veteran, happy to have survived and soon to be confronted with some harsh realities. But Michael Pena was the real surprise. He is completely captivating in his portrayal of a proud young vet from a military family on his way to meet his girlfriend, with his masculinity compromised by a war injury. His character is the most subtly poignant as he confronts his own fears about his manhood, on several levels.Like all movies based on the Iraqi war, this seems to suffer from America's desire to ignore the war altogether, just as they ignored the Vietnam veterans a generation ago (Coming Home, The Deer Hunter). America seems to be much less willing to address its failures now than it was then, or even the lesser failures in the wake of World War II.