Lucky Numbers

views updated

Lucky Numbers ★½ 2000 (R)

Here's a lucky number for you: Zero. That's the amount of time you should spend on this unfortunate comedy. TV weatherman Russ (Travolta) is caught up in a lavish lifestyle he can't afford because unseasonably warm weather is ruining his ontheside snowmobile business. He schemes with the station's morally lax lotto ball girl Crystal (Kudrow) to fix a jackpot lottery, with her oafish cousin Walter (Moore) as the front man with the ticket. Their plan slips out, so they're hounded by a host of greedy dimwits hoping to get in on the action. Resnick, who hails from Harrisburg PA, where the movie is set, apparently has no qualms painting his fellow townspeople as amoral losers. Loosely based on a 1980 attempt to fix the Pennsylvania State Lottery. 105m/C VHS, DVD . John Travolta, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Roth, Ed O'Neill, Michael Rapaport, Daryl (Chill) Mitchell, Bill Pullman, Richard Schiff, Michael Moore, Michael Weston, Sam McMurray; D: Nora Ephron; W: Adam Resnick; C: John Lindley; M: George Fenton.