If it weren't for the very bad reviews on here, I would probably make this a 6/10, but I think this movie is worth a watch...casually on Netflix or some other free form. Did I love this movie? No. Not the best movie around, but I love Colin Hanks and the premise looked really interesting. It was rather slow moving at points, and as others mentioned, the characters can be annoying. However, Lucy being a very annoying character was actually planned perfectly. At first I hated it, but once it played into her manipulating Ben, and how that dynamic just seemed incredibly realistic, I really felt what they were going for. It REALLY hit me when she witnessed the first murder though. You could see her character as this zany annoying girl who just manipulated into a marriage she didn't want just for some money, and then she walks into this nightmare and she realizes.The battle between wanting to stay with a rich husband, and processing the murder is just a brilliant couple of scenes. She is zoned out, but slowly chooses to help her husband and try to live with it, but you can tell she isn't coping that well (who would!?). But every additional display of money is just edging her towards just dealing with it and enjoying a lavish lifestyle.Also Colin Hanks was great as the serial killer, and the craziness with imagining Lucy all over was really well done. He also was believable in the way that he just snaps and kills and then kind of comes back to reality.

I'll assume that you know this is a dark comedy about a serial killer. If you can swallow that premise, you're halfway there. If not, walk away while you still can.Good, you're still here. Maybe you have a slightly sick sense of humor, or maybe you're simply able to differentiate fiction from reality. One way or another, I think you'll be entertained by this film.Like any good dark comedy, it makes no attempt to moralize, rationalize or justify the characters' criminal actions. Think of the scene in "Pulp Fiction" when they accidentally blow a guy's head off and sit there bickering with bits of brains in their hair. Think of the scene in "The Prophecy" where Christopher Walken, playing the angel of death, snatches a poor dying cancer patient from her blissful demise and forces her to become his servant simply because he can't drive a car. If you cracked a smile at these or any other shockingly morbid bits of dark comedy, then read on.Though not as hyper violent as "Pulp Fiction" or as action packed as "The Prophecy", this film "Lucky" keeps the same sort of biting, surreal, amoral humor. There haven't been too many romcoms that center around murder and psychosis, and for that I give this bonus points for originality.It earns extra points for Ari Graynor's EXCELLENT performance as the detestable gold-digger whose wacky descent into madness makes us suddenly start to root for her. Again, this is in keeping with the theme that even detestable characters can become our heroes. Ari's performance is one of the best examples of how to sway the audiences sympathy even though, in real life, such a character wouldn't be worth the trouble of spitting on her.Similarly, Colin Hanks, with his boyishly innocent face and perpetual deer-in-the-headlights expression, makes you cheer for him even though he butchers people with no remorse. Throw in the lovely Ann-Margaret as the creepy mother, and you have a film with flawless casting. Oh, and how could I forget Jeffrey Tambor? Note to self: never, ever forget Jeffrey Tambor.My only criticism of this film is that the ending comes upon you quite fast and may seem slightly implausible the way it's hastily explained in the final scene. But maybe that's the point. Like an unexpected punchline to a joke, it's probably designed to whack you senseless. But I would've loved to have seen more of Ari losing her mind, having ghostly hallucinations and transforming from clever manipulator to total flake. That's really what made me love this movie.I also seem to recall that the music was pretty cool. I had never heard of the band Transcargo before, but I really liked their song "Kissing the Day" (listen to it on Myspace). I also liked "Whatever Gets You By" by The Features. These and other songs are quirky, happy-ish tunes that are brilliantly juxtaposed against the macabre story.If you like dark comedies that make light of murder, don't hesitate to check this out. So many dark comedies rely on unspoken satire for laughs, but this one dives boldly into comedy territory. I haven't seen too many of those madcap, slapstick style dark comedies. Similar films include the Roberto Benigni film "Il Mostro" about a nerdy schlep (Benigni) who is being investigated for multiple gruesome murders, the Chinese film "A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop" which is a comedy remake of the Coen Brothers' thriller "Blood Simple", and an obscure gem called "Mambo Cafe" about a family that tries to stage a murder at their restaurant to improve business.

The director, Gil Cates, does what he can to pep up this bizarre story without distracting directorial displays, but the screenplay doesn't give him much to work with.It's not impossible to make very funny movies about serial killers. "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Kind Hearts and Coronets" are both successful. But this movie doesn't seem to know where it wants to go. It's an ineffective hash of comedy and horror and it gets nowhere.As comedy it fails because there's nothing particularly funny about it, outside of one scene towards the opening, in which Ari Graynor interrupts a board meeting to tell some intimate and disgusting secrets about the chairman. It's a nicely caught moment.But -- well, what is the story about, anyway? A greedy and noisy young blond marries the office nerd, Colin Hanks, for his money after he wins the lottery. It turns out that this nebbish has no idea how to handle this sudden flow of cash and, on top of that, is the notorious serial killer the police are hunting. There are three bodies buried in the back yard, in addition to those cadavers he's left on the spot. So what does Graynor do when she digs up the bodies? (There is no hint of cadaverine.) She drags them and buries them somewhere else, an act which, along with one or two other utterly inexplicable acts, leads to her conviction as the serial killer and after a year or so, Hanks visits her in prison for the first time. She heaps her calumny upon him. And then what? She quietly asks him to keep visiting her and smiles gently. The last scene is an appealingly artsy overhead shot, as the director's joints creak while he reaches for SOMETHING to serve as a climactic moment.Ari Graynor is almost always loud and teetering on hysteria, which isn't funny. Colin Hanks looks like the guy in some TV commercial who tries to fix a home appliance and gets shocked.What does it all mean? The mismatched love, the lottery, the serial murders? Your guess is as good as mine. It all reminds me of a stew I once made out of canned foods whose sell-by dates were rapidly approaching. I called it an "olla podrida." This movie turned out better than the stew. The movie is at least a "ragout chez mois."

I like Colin Hanks. A lot of people just say that he's a complete knock-off of his father but that comment always completely misses the point. His father was darn likable even when being prickly or sarcastic he's still just effortlessly likable. Colin has a similar likability, one that certainly veers more to the prickly or complainy side--but still he's a guy you can either like or at least watch in most things that he appears in and not have a problem with. The casting of him in this movie should've been so perfect--unfortunately the movie itself is way too slow to set its premise up, even slower to get its other main character up to speed with what the audience already knows which kind of kills the suspense that's suppose to be building up. I should single out the other lead in the film--the nicely daffy Ari Gaynor plays her and if the movie works at all i would say its completely because of her ability to show you why she would do the things she does in the movie even if you're sitting there questioning why she would or should, you completely buy her character's motivation and reasoning.If you're reading this you probably already know the set-up and that's about all there is to know for this movie quite honestly. I was hoping for something a little more funny...or maybe even a little bit darker---the plot was really promising after all but its as if once the idea is established, the writer/director couldn't think of where else to take it other then the usual cat and mouse games that normally occur in these kinds of movies. (will the wife eventually snap? will the husband eventually snap? is the husband even the real killer? is the detective played by a seemingly bored Jeffery Tambor getting ever closer to the 2 of them? and what's the deal with Ann Margaret as Hanks'mother?) All of what happens in the movie happens really slowly until maybe the last ten minutes at which point if you're still watching, you're just trying to figure out how the director is going to wrap it up. The wrap up actually is pretty good--there's even an actual honest to goodness laugh from the delivery of one of the one liners here. (One of the few one liners that completely lands too) Its unfortunate that the director couldn't find this perfect balance in tone between discomfort and humor before the end of the movie but what can you do? movie's already finished at that point. I didn't dislike the film really--but there were scenes where i was more bored then interested in the storyline and that's not a good thing for any kind of movie. Essentialy the film could've done so much more with its plot line that its unbelievable that it doesn't.