READY for the Iraq war meets “Road Trip”?
“The Lucky Ones” is cheap, ignorant, tone-deaf and condescending, but what’s strangest about it is that it actually thinks it’s pro-soldier even as it portrays vets home on leave as foolish (Rachel McAdams), desperate (Tim Robbins) and dishonorable (Michael Pena) while playing all three situations for laughs.
The three are returning home for 30 days of leave – they have nothing in common except a flight – when they get stranded at JFK Airport during a blackout. So they rent a car and drive it to Las Vegas. Colee (McAdams), who has been shot in the leg, spouts lines that would have embarrassed Chrissy on “Three’s Company” as she talks about returning a guitar to a friend who got killed saving her life. T.K. (Pena) and Cheever (Robbins) have also been seriously wounded, one in battle and one by accident. A Port-a-Potty fell on Cheever and crushed his spine, a situation the film finds hilarious.
They lock their keys in the car and get dissed by college girls at a roadhouse in Indiana (unlikely – try a TriBeCa cocktail party). Colee, in a motel room, says, “TV! TV! TV!” and Cheever gets dumped by his wife, then seduced by the wife of a rich man who wants to watch her get it on with a soldier. All of these hijinks are accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like a buddy-cop comedy from about 1987.
We’re meant to laugh when Colee tells Cheever, who is suicidal, “There’s no killing yourself or anyone else, OK?”
So few specifics are given about everyone’s experiences and units (these would be the main topics of conversation among soldiers) that it’s as if writer-director Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) literally couldn’t be bothered to read a book on the war.
THE LUCKY ONES
Iraq for yuks.
Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (profanity, sexual content). At the Empire, the 84th Street, the 64th and Second, others.