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Shy, withdrawn, down-on-his-luck ice cream truck driver Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser), a hapless social misfit, sneaks into Press Your Luck auditions.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!)

Stowaway: Clever riff on a classic sci-fi dilemma

Stowaway (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-MA, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.21

Math is unyielding.

 

No matter how desperate the circumstances, no matter how dire the situation, math won’t suddenly offer a more promising result.

 

While Michael (Shamier Anderson, far left) watches nervously, Commander Barnett
(Toni Colette, far right) clarifies their mission's implacable resource limitations to
Zoe (Anna Kendrick) and David (Daniel Dae Kim).

Writer/director Joe Penna’s absorbing Stowaway — a Netflix original — is Tom Godwin’s “Cold Equations” writ large (and a nod to that 1954 sci-fi classic would have been nice). Penna and co-scripter Ryan Morrison have “opened up” Godwin’s short story quite effectively, expanding the character roster, modifying the setting and circumstances.

 

But the core imperative remains the same: You simply can’t argue with math.

 

The story, set in a future when Mars has been colonized, begins as a Kingfisher rocket blasts off from Earth, under the command of Marina Barnett (Toni Colette). She’s joined by medical researcher Zoe Levenson (Anna Kendrick) and biologist/botanist David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim), accomplished academics chosen from thousands of applicants who submitted proposals for Mars-based research.

 

They dock with the Hyperion MTS-42, a modular space station. The spent rocket is transformed into a spinning counterweight at the end of a 500-meter-long tether; this supplies artificial gravity for the months-long journey to Mars. (Very cool concept, I might add.)

 

Shortly after this lengthy trip begins, during routine safety checks, Marina discovers an unconscious man in an overhead compartment that contains the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA). When the body drops to the floor, his weight breaks Marina’s forearm; his safety harness, wrapped around a pipe attached to the CDRA, also inflicts damage.

 

Once he regains consciousness, the newcomer proves to be Michael Adams (Shamier Anderson), a ground crew engineer who blacked out after injuring himself during final pre-flight checks.

 

(I know, I know. The notion that there wouldn’t be some sort of personnel role call prior to take-off, is rather difficult to swallow. We gotta just go with it.)

 

(Technically, Michael also isn’t a stowaway, since he’s present accidentally, rather than intentionally. But that really is picking nits.)

 

Michael initially is horrified by the implications of his plight; the MTS-42 already has traveled past the point of no return, which means he’s looking at a two-year leave from Earth. This is agonizing — and Anderson plays this quite well — because he’s the sole support for his younger sister Ava, back on Earth. Happily, Hyperion officials — reached by radio — rise to the occasion, and promise to house and support her.

 

At which point, Michael calmly accepts the situation, and promises to “carry his weight” to whatever degree the others can use him.

 

Ah, but there’s the rub.