Lucky (2002)

Millard Mudd (Michael Emanuel) is an overweight balding loner, a writer of cartoons with a serious drinking problem and a distinct lack of grounding in normal reality, as his brain frequently jumps into a violent fantasy world when confronted by doubts and insecurities. Millard whiles away his days staring at his screen, trying everything he can do to convince himself to write, including tying himself to the chair and holding himself at gunpoint. Money is short and he desperately needs to pay the bills, to provide more liquid sustenance and produce something, a script, anything, more than he has done all year. His agent doesn't want to represent him and there isn't a woman alive who wants to know him and he knows... He's dredged the barrel trying every kind of woman from nuns and the physically challenged, to his own half sister, who's lower half is definitely more like a half brother. All it takes is a spot of drink driving and a freak accident to change his life, but is it for the better?

Once he runs over a mongrel named Lucky (Played by Sydney, Voiced by David Reivers), his life changes completely. Lucky resembles what my girlfriend calls a 'yappy type dog', small, terrier like, with a wicked mess of wild fur and hardly what you would rush to take home as a pet, certainly not with its intestines hanging out. But Millard is so lonely even a dying pet is better than nothing and Lucky is starting to look really good to him (and I don't mean to eat). He isn't bothered when it pops its furry clogs, because that's when things get really interesting. Yeah, one quick burial at the side of the road with a quick splash of beer toast and sermon, and Lucky is happily scampering around and talking away. Yes talking... and it's no yappy type voice either. Lucky has balls, deep baritone balls and a sense of the heartless manipulating pimp about him. No sooner has he started to deal with the fact that Lucky is talking, before it is ordering him to write, hiding his drink and even proof reading what he tells Millard to type. Lucky comes up with the story, Millard takes the credit and Hollywood just can't get enough. Things look to be on the up and up, when Millard's fantasy girlfriend, the curvaceous Misty (Piper Cochrane), appears for real and the scripts make Millard a hot prospect, so hot even his Agent comes groveling. But this is not a fairy tale folks, even if it does feature a talking dog...

No sir... LUCKY is a downright nasty film and will appeal to fans of such offbeat dark dreams as MAN BITES DOG and SCHRAMM, casting serial killers in a definitely non-Hollywood-police investigative-high octane-car chase, kind of way. Only an Independent film would be brave enough to have an acutely malfunctioning loner as a lead character, one so seedy you can practically smell the stench of stale beer, sweat and recycled farts in his room. The film casually dances between pathos and black comedy with a wink it its eye before diving cheerfully into a bloody ooze of serial killings, tooth trophies and necrophilia. One minute we are dealing with a talking dog, so conniving it can run rings around Millard, even when he is trying to poison or blackmail the mangy hound, the next we have to witness various acts of depravity and Millard's self loathing and the vomiting despair that come hand in hand, wondering which way our emotions will be tormented next and which dark alley this will all lead us down. Not all of this depravity happens on camera, thankfully with the constraints of low budget filmmaking most of the violence happens off screen and is alluded to with dialogue, clever blocking or sound design and there is a constant humour to break up the darkness and relieve some hysteria with nervous laughter. The almost constant voiceover device - narration and talking dog - can get monotonous, but the film is so well written and original that it wins you over and invites you along for the ride. I did find the opening contemplation driving scene a bit tedious and the ending/mental angle could have been clearer/more competently resolved - it does have a few plot holes, but inevitably it does work. You would definitely be surprised by both creators' pedigrees, seeing far more, well known TV work on their CV's - Stephen Sustarsic won an Emmy for the WILD THORNBERRYS and Steven Cuden created the DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE Musical! You have to wonder how much was based on reality...

The picture suffered occasionally from some pixelisation, a result of being shot in DV and converted with the 'film look' process, but is far better quality than many I have seen of late. The sound was crisp which made the excellent deranged 'muzak' style score a joy, competently adding extra colour to the madness that is Millard's dementia and the dialogue was clear, one thing that usually lets these DV films down. The Screener I saw had no extras to speak of save the trailer, but it will be worth buying, in Widescreen along with the Director's commentary, which I'm sure will be as entertaining as the film.