"Lucky You": B-

When a movie's release gets delayed for eight months, it's guaranteed to suck. With "Lucky You," I thought, because Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") directs from a screenplay he wrote with Eric Roth ("Munich"), perhaps it'd actually be a great movie Warner Brothers feared audiences wouldn't enjoy. Well, it's neither the expected disaster nor an unexpected surprise, but it doesn't deserve the bad reputation it's received.\nSet during the World Series of Poker, "Lucky You" follows rebel gambler Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) as he competes in the tournament against his father (Robert Duvall), who bailed on him and his mother. He's been mad at the world ever since and is so emotionally numb, he only thinks of poker and beating his old man. When aspiring lounge singer Billie (Drew Barrymore) shows up to woo him (no surprise here), he's too cold to connect.\nThere are reasons for the beating the film's taking. Bana's usually great acting is stale. He sounds like a pitiful aspiring actor blatantly reading a script (and why were three inches not cut off his mullet-ed hair?) Barrymore's Moral Molly character exists solely as a plot device meant to soften Bana. There's nothing realistic about her. She eats fortune cookies before her meal so she can think about the message as she eats and spews artificial insights like "I think everybody's just trying not to be lonely." \nDespite these drawbacks, "Lucky You" has a calming, pleasantness quality. It doesn't film Vegas as the 24/7-classy party-Playboy bunny place as "Entourage," "Ocean's Eleven" and so many others do. \nI like watching gambling in movies, but I hate watching real poker games on TV. The difference? In film, the game is filmed so you know when something good or bad has happened. On TV, you're supposed to understand how the game works, and no fancy camera work aids viewing. I'm card game illiterate, but the point is, the poker scenes are entertaining (even if there are about 3,000 of them).\nThis one's probably better for an afternoon rental, but when "Shrek" and "Pirates" are sold out in a few weeks, it's a decent alternative.