All I need to tell you about Lucky Day is that it was written by the same guy who wrote Pulp Fiction, Roger Avary. With a dark sense of humor and brutal action, this is one of those entertaining comedies with a distinct style. I’m sure you’ll recognize not just Pulp Fiction but also True Romance vibes, another one of Avary’s movies. With great production values, stellar camerawork, and juicy cinematography, the movie looks great. I just love this combination of over-the-top action, humor, and crime. It reminds me not of the ’90s but the ’00s. A time when this visual style was quite popular along with a similar type of storytelling. As time goes on, I’m sure that purely based on the atmosphere and Crispin’s stellar performance this will become a cult classic. Just his fucking accent was hilarious as fuck.
Lucky Day is also a strange kind of sequel to Killing Zoe, Avery’s debut movie. If there’s one thing this man can do that’s to write intriguing and hilarious characters. Here, we have a somewhat common petty thief with a family thing going on as opposed to insanely crazy Luc, a contract killer hellbent on revenge. And to even things out on the good guys’ side there’s DPO Ernesto Sanchez. Just when I thought that this might be a good movie, guess who walked through the door? Motherfucking Clifton Collins Jr. and made it a great movie! Although his role is rather small, he brought that sense of authenticity and coolness to the story. Luke Bracey was charming as the safecracker Red with beautiful Nina Dobrev as his wife, Chloe, the artist. However, Crispin Glover stole the show here as Luc drawing inspiration from his Willard days.
After serving two years in prison, Red is finally free. Finally free to be with his wife and daughter and to visit his old friend Leroy. He decided to turn things around and not be a safecracker anymore, especially since his parole officer is riding him hard. On the same day of his release, a mysterious man landed in his town. He goes by the name of Luc and speaks English with a French accent, although he’s not French himself. However, that’s not the most important thing about Luc. The most important thing about him is that he’s a stark raving mad killer looking for Red to settle an old score.
Full of juicy shootouts with bullets flying everywhere and violent confrontations, Lucky Day is very entertaining. It reminded me of El Infierno or God Bless America, with the same mix of comedy and violence. Not to mention Rodriguez and Tarantino’s influences. Avary’s still got it and he made fun and breezy action-comedy unfolding in almost real-time. Perfect for a night of drinking and smoking weed. If that’s the thing you prefer, of course. With funny and engaging dialogue, the story unfolds at a steady pace. Although, I must admit there are some issues with certain scenes. It’s like one scene is great, one mediocre, and one relatively bad, and then the cycle repeats. In the end, depending on your taste, this might be a great or a decent movie. What’s certain, however, is that it’s definitely worth watching.
Director: Roger Avary
Writer: Roger Avary
Cast: Luke Bracey, Nina Dobrev, Crispin Glover, Ella Ryan Quinn, Clé Bennett, Clifton Collins Jr., David Hewlett
Fun Facts: Avary had announced the sequel to Killing Zoe (1993) would be called Lucky Day more than 20 years prior to the release of this film.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7248248/
