Product Details

• Actors: Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, Michael Peña, Howard Platt, Arden Myrin
• Directors: Neil Burger
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: January 27, 2009
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001KP2J2G
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,337 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Military & War > Comedy

• For more information about "The Lucky Ones" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

An earnest if not wholly satisfying comedy-drama about an awkward homecoming for three dissimilar Iraq War veterans, The Lucky Ones works best as a vehicle for its interesting lead performances. Tim Robbins transcends his real-life, anti-war reputation by playing Cheever, a Reservist and decent fellow who is injured in Iraq when a porta-potty falls on him. Eager to see his family, he ends up on a road trip with two other soldiers trying to reach their own destinations. There's Colee (Rachel McAdams), a young and earnest woman who enlisted to escape family problems, endured a leg wound and is on her way to meet the family of her boyfriend, who was killed in combat. There's also T.K. (Michael Peña), recruited from a poor family and granted a month's leave after becoming impotent from a wound. The odyssey these characters, initially strangers to each other, share is fairly predictable for anyone who has seen such classic vets-coming-home movies as The Best Years of Our Lives. As Colee, T.K. and Cheever travel together, they encounter what sometimes feels and looks like an alien landscape: people who patronize them, people who despise the war without an inkling of what it's like to endure it, and a host of other exploitative chuckleheads who just don't get it. Inevitably, the trio has only itself to rely upon, to share the knowledge of the war's reality and provide support in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes poignant. Co-written and directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist), The Lucky Ones has a rambling structure that causes the film to lose focus. But its heart is in the right place, and Robbins, McAdams and Peña play people one can care about as much as enjoy. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

Three soliders on leave from the iraq war who unexpectedly find themselves on a poitnant journey of self-discovery. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 01/27/2009 Starring: Rachel Mcadams Tim Robbins Run time: 115 minutes Rating: R Director: Neil Burger

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good and Fair Look at Our Soldiers and Very Entertaining, March 5, 2009

By	Ken Douglas (The Coast) - See all my reviews

Though I think Tim Robbins is a fine actor, too often I think his politics sneak into his roles and though politically I pretty much agree with him, when I see a movie I want to escape the real world, usually anyway. Robbins was better than excellent as the wacko in the cellar in The War of the Worlds and he was superb in Mystic River, so he can and does act well above his politics.

But when Vesta brought this one home I knew I was going to get a preachy anti-Iraq war film, but I was wrong. This movie is about three very different kinds of people, two young people home on leave and an older reservist, played by Robbins, whose tour is over. Bad weather forces them to rent a car and the movie turns into a road trip.

And there is road trip humor here. And there are characters who are opposed to the war, as I would have expected. But what I didn't expect was to see the characters who support the war portrayed as decent, caring, human beings. Actually, if anything, the characters who one would think agree with Robbins' politics, come off as being close minded and a bit simple.

The movie, on the other hand, is anything but simple. It's a complex look at the soldiers who are fighting the war, their beliefs, what they face when they come home and why they're in the all volunteer Army in the first place. This is a good and fair movie, what's more it's entertaining.

PS. I'd be remise if I didn't mention the outstanding acting of Michael Pena as the soldier who was wounding in the privates and is on his way to Las Vegas to find some of those special kind of women they have there who might be able to get it working again. And rounding out this ensemble is Rachel McAdams, a girl returning the guitar of a fallen comrade to his parents. She's wacky, zany, quirky and charming all at the same time and she'll steal your heart. Mr. Robbins couldn't have found better people to be in a movie with.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime road trip with indelible characters, February 16, 2009

By	Joseph W. (GA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon.com recapped the plot ably if less than enthusiastically, so I'll just jump to the praise. A truly fantastic movie! Intelligent, hilarious, touching, surprising, thoughtful, wonderfully performed, even suspensful. Superlatives do not do this movie justice because each one demands it's own exclamation when instead they are all woven together into the seemless and harmonic beauty that is this film's quiet grandeur. And don't forget it's very funny. So do yourself a great favor and see a movie with characters you will not want to leave, or leave each other. Thanks, and have a nice evening.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming hybrid, April 15, 2009

By	H. Schneider "Hermit" (window seat) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The movie combines the well established road movie genre with the more recent 'returners from Iraq' genre. It is a comedy that makes light of personal tragedies and does it gracefully. I watched it in a 'combi pack' with 'Stop Loss', the much more serious film about soldiers who are forced to return to the front after their contracted term has expired.

In The Lucky Ones, Robbins is a sergeant who has completed his term and who looks forward to return to wife and teenage son. Pena and McAdams are on a 30 days home leave. The three get accidentally grouped together for a car trip from New York to Las Vegas and experience the difficulties of outsiders in an ambiguous situation. None of them has stable social circumstances, as even the Robbins character finds out to his shock. Their social backgrounds are quite divergent. They are variously feted as war heroes or attacked by the home crowd for being either too stupid to stay away from trouble or too luke warm about the war effort itself. The backseat drivers in middle American require heroic attitudes, not a statement that survival is a soldier's main objective.
This is the kind of movie that discusses problems without indoctrinating you.