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20
American Carol, An
xx
Australia
26
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24
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41
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45
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57
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63
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82
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43
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15
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43
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58
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49
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54
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72
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35
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53
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61
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31
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43
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37
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35
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34
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64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
39
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45
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58
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53
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36
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53
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59
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19
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57
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49
Sex Drive
63
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49
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36
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35
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47
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60
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71
Tropic Thunder
56
Twilight
70
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
56
W.
93
WALL-E
27
Women, The
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
56
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
93
WALL-E
82
Dark Knight, The
73
Kung Fu Panda
72
Ghost Town
71
Tropic Thunder
70
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
67
Bolt
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
63
Burn After Reading
61
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
60
Traitor
59
Role Models
58
Express, The
58
Quantum of Solace
58
City of Ember
57
Secret Life of Bees, The
57
Body of Lies
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
57
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
57
Flash of Genius
56
Twilight
56
W.
56
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
55
House Bunny, The
54
Get Smart
53
Quarantine
53
Rocker, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
49
Sex Drive
49
Family That Preys, The
49
Soul Men
47
Swing Vote
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
46
Lakeview Terrace
45
Blindness
45
Pride and Glory
43
Eagle Eye
43
Meet Dave
43
Death Race
41
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
39
Nights in Rodanthe
37
Miracle at St. Anna
36
Space Chimps
36
Righteous Kill
36
Fly Me to the Moon
35
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
35
Mirrors
34
My Best Friend's Girl
31
Max Payne
28
Haunting of Molly Hartley. The
27
Women, The
26
Babylon A.D.
24
Bangkok Dangerous
20
American Carol, An
19
Saw V
15
Disaster Movie
15
College
xx
Australia
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

xx
All of Us
53
Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
64
Appaloosa
69
Ashes of Time Redux
68
August Evening
xx
B.O.H.I.C.A.
62
Baghead
84
Ballast
54
Battle in Seattle
xx
Beer for My Horses
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
xx
Billy: The Early Years
66
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56
Bottle Shock
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
50
Breakfast with Scot
61
Brick Lane
43
Call and Response
62
Changeling
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Choke
46
Choose Connor
84
Christmas Tale, A
41
Cthulhu
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
xx
Dostana
62
Duchess, The
46
Dukes, The
63
Eden
xx
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66
Elegy
46
Elephant King, The
80
Encounters at the End of the World
26
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64
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69
Fear(s) of the Dark
26
Filth and Wisdom
28
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52
First Basket, The
67
Flow: For Love of Water
37
Forever Strong
69
Frontrunners
82
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43
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73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
54
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30
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84
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44
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31
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27
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47
How About You
54
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72
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70
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40
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64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
78
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63
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41
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xx
Just Buried
62
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63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
25
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78
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81
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xx
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63
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89
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xx
Mary
xx
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62
Mister Foe
84
Momma's Man
51
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79
Moving Midway
33
My Name Is Bruce
59
Nights and Weekends
73
Obscene
40
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34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
40
Passengers
xx
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55
Ping Pong Playa
75
Pool, The
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82
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56
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32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
xx
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53
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56
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74
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45
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57
Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
56
Special
58
Splinter
79
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67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
64
Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
57
Towelhead
72
Transsiberian
83
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43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
61
Universe of Keith Haring
84
Up the Yangtze
52
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79
Visitor, The
61
Wackness, The
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Up the Yangtze
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Ballast
84
Momma's Man
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Frozen River
82
Rachel Getting Married
81
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
80
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
79
Moving Midway
79
Visitor, The
78
I've Loved You So Long
78
Last Mistress, The
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
75
Pool, The
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
74
Secret, A
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Obscene
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Transsiberian
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Frontrunners
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
67
Synecdoche, New York
67
Flow: For Love of Water
66
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
66
Elegy
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
64
Fall, The
64
Appaloosa
64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Man Named Pearl, A
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Changeling
62
Kabluey
62
Duchess, The
62
Mister Foe
62
Baghead
61
Wackness, The
61
Brick Lane
61
Universe of Keith Haring
59
Nights and Weekends
59
We Are Wizards
58
Splinter
57
Towelhead
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
57
Sixty Six
56
Special
56
Save Me
56
Religulous
56
Bottle Shock
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
55
Ping Pong Playa
54
Humboldt County
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
53
Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
52
First Basket, The
52
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Choose Connor
46
Elephant King, The
46
Dukes, The
45
Shoot on Sight
44
Henry Poole is Here
43
Call and Response
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Johnny Got His Gun
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
40
Passengers
37
Forever Strong
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
33
My Name Is Bruce
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Everybody Wants to Be Italian
26
Filth and Wisdom
25
Lake City
xx
Dostana
xx
Phoebe in Wonderland
xx
All of Us
xx
Matador, The
xx
Billy: The Early Years
xx
Roadside Romeo
xx
B.O.H.I.C.A.
xx
Eden Lake
xx
Just Buried
xx
Beer for My Horses
xx
Mary
xx
Lower Learning
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Lucky Ones, The
Roadside Attractions
 |
|
MPAA RATING: R for language and some sexual content
Starring
Rachel McAdams,
Tim Robbins,
Michael Pena,
Molly Hagan,
Mark L. Young,
Howard Platt,
Arden Myrin,
and
Coburn Goss
T.K. Poole, Colee Dunn and Fred Cheever arrive in New York from Germany only to find their connecting flights canceled due to a power outage. Anxious to get to their respective destinations, they agree to share a rented minivan to suburban St. Louis where Cheever is to reunite with his wife and teenage son. From there, the other two plan to fly to Las Vegas where the macho T.K. wants to make an important stop before seeing his fiancee and the tough yet naive Colee plans to pay a visit to a fallen fellow-soldier's family. But when Cheever's homecoming turns out to be a far cry from what he anticipated, the trio's one-day drive expands into an impromptu cross-country marathon. (Roadside Attractions)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Neil Burger
Dirk Wittenborn
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Neil Burger
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: September 26, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
113 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
This formula is fraught with pitfalls, but the characters and the actors redeem it with a surprising emotional impact.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
This is more than the story of soldiers grappling with stress and doubt as they reenter the "normal" flow of domestic life. It's about strangers bonding, about friendship and discovery, about the comedy and tragedy of the human experience.

75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
This movie has its own emotional sorcery. In a raw, humorous way, it grasps how hope and desperation spur magical thinking and, sometimes, real magic.

70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
I'd hate to guess whether most Americans know, any more than these fictional partygoers, what soldiers go through in Iraq. But if the market for movies about the war is any indication, they don't want to.

70
The New York Times
Laura Kern
Because the lead actors work so well together, adding depth and levels of vulnerability to fairly underwritten roles, the emotional consequences of the sense of displacement these "lucky" characters -- lucky to be alive, lucky to have met one another -- must deal with always ring true.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The Lucky Ones isn't dull, and the actors do quite nicely, especially McAdams, who's feisty, gorgeous, and as mercurial as a mood ring.

67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Like its lead characters, Lucky is wounded, lost, and impractical, but it has a messy, winning humanity and an agreeably leisurely pace that almost redeems it.

63
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
As close as a movie about three Iraq war soldiers should come to mediocre TV comedy.

63
Premiere
Stuart Levine
While the journey is somewhat bumpy and awfully contrived at times, the characters making the trek are ones we don't mind being cooped with for long stretches of highway.

63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The weakest aspect of The Lucky Ones is by far the conclusion, which is flat and contrived.

63
TV Guide
Ken Fox
An entertaining road movie with a topical point: The three passengers on this cross-country trip are U.S. soldiers who've just returned from Iraq.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Though the lead performances are uniformly good, the film seems hazy in its focus from the start. Many of the scenes seem to simply meander.

58
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
It's not a political film, but it's also not a bland recitation of homilies about the honor of serving one's country. It's a jokey road movie, in which three soldiers heading home from Iraq are forced into a cross-country van ride together.

55
NPR
Bob Mondello
There's something centrally pat and predictable about the coincidence-laden story, and by the time they get to Vegas, The Lucky Ones has been all but done in by a surfeit of serendipity.

50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The film itself, which has everything from erection jokes to a computer-generated tornado, comes down to a battle between the interpreters and a screenplay riddled with convenience, cliche and well-meaning contrivance.

50
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
More than a story about Iraq war veterans, The Lucky Ones is a movie about carefully considering one's options.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Sura Wood
This moderately engaging, offbeat film requires a patience that audiences haven't demonstrated recently for stories concerning the fate of soldiers at home or abroad.

50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Burger is so respectful of the trio that he never gets under their skin. Apart from the generosity of strangers who pay tribute to the soldiers with little acts of kindness, you get the same generic observations of any road movie.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
If this is meant to look fresh while still being sensitive, it doesn't and it isn't.

50
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
About the only thing I like about this movie is its shaggy, relatively apolitical stance. Instead of setting itself up as a brief for or against the Iraq war, it just moseys along without much on its mind except how to connect the dots in the plot.

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
As the film meanders, the powerful moments barely outnumber the ridiculous. And another excellent performance from McAdams isn't quite good enough to mask the distractions.

40
Variety
Todd McCarthy
It's hard to find the genuine heartfelt moments in The Lucky Ones.

40
Village Voice
Vadim Rizov
Its hopelessly schematic road-trip arc (bond-fight-reconcile-repeat) grows increasingly tedious.

30
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Could be filed under "wacky misfire."

25
New York Post
Kyle Smith
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 average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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