The Luckiest Man in America: A quirky, fact-based morality tale

The Luckiest Man in America (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for frequent profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

This is an excellent thematic companion to 1994’s Quiz Show.

 

But while that earlier game show scandal drama is a handsomely mounted major studio production, this new film from director/co-scripter Samir Oliveros is cheekily retro and unapologetically low-budget ... which adds to its sense of period authenticity.

 

While fellow contestant Ed Long (Brian Geraghty, left) watches attentively, Michael Larson
(Paul Walter Hauser) prepares for his firt spin of the "Big Board" on the TV game show
Press Your Luck.

Modest production values aside, Oliveros nonetheless gets the most from a strong cast, as this jaw-dropping saga unfolds. And although he and co-writers Mattie Briggs and Amanda Freedman carefully insist that some details have been “massaged” for dramatic intensity, much of what unfolds here — including the names of all key participants — goes down just as it happened.

Following a brief first act, events take place during a single day of taping for Press Your Luck, a CBS game show that ran from 1983 to 1986 ... and likely would be entirely forgotten today, were it not for what happened on May 19, 1984.

 

Shy, withdrawn, down-on-his-luck ice cream truck driver Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser), a hapless social misfit, sneaks into Press Your Luck auditions. He cheekily claims somebody else’s appointment slot, gets caught and ejected ... but not before winning over executive producer Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn), who suspects the guy would make “good television.”

 

Michael has a great back-story. He admits driving across the entire country in his ice cream truck, and hopes to win enough cash to impress his estranged wife and young daughter.

 

Casting director Chuck (Shamier Anderson) is dubious. Something doesn’t seem right about the guy.

 

Carruthers nonetheless books Michael for the next day’s taping. As requested, he arrives wearing a suit jacket and tie ... making him even more comical, atop baggy shorts (which won’t be visible during taping). The obviously nervous and twitchy Michael is ushered onto the set by Sylvia (Maisie Williams), a kind-hearted production assistant who nonetheless eyes him warily.

 

Michael takes the middle “hot seat” between co-contestants Ed Long (Brian Geraghty) and Janie Litras (Patti Harrison): the former a minister, the latter a dental assistant.

 

Walton Goggins is note-perfect as smarmy show host Peter Tomarken, whose occasional off-color jokes — sometimes at the expense of contestants — delight the studio audience.

 

(Tomarken is a product of that still less-enlightened time. Remember how Richard Dawson always kissed every female contestants on Family Feud? Yuck!)