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Movie Review: “The Lucky Man” Is Evocative Of Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

A young charismatic preacher and his hot Latina girlfriend travel Route 66 scamming the small churches along the way only to find that the bogus healing powers he portrays become real. The healing powers serve as a blessing and a curse.

“The Lucky Man” tells the story of a young preacher, Rev. Johnny Jones (Jesse James) and his fiercely loyal girlfriend Rebecca (Mariana Paola Vicente), and their life on the road. While on their way from Texas to California, Rebecca has dreams and aspirations of settling down and eventually starting a family, while Johnny is more concerned with the journey at hand. Searching for small out-of-the-way towns, he preaches to unsuspecting crowds with such passion and fervor, he has them eating out of the palms of his hands, filling up their collection plates with enough money to get them to their next destination. Johnny is no saint and when not preaching, he snorts cocaine and downs tequila, while Rebecca watches old TV shows.

Upon reaching a small town, Johnny realizes that he is almost out of drugs and makes his way to a bar where he hooks up with two small-time thugs. When he tries to make an exchange with them at an agreed-upon location, they pull a gun on him but he manages to shoot one of them first. As the other runs off, Johnny is immediately filled with remorse and falls to his knees, pleading to God to save the man’s life. While holding his hands over the man, the skies darken, and thunder booms all around them and in the blink of an eye, the man is alive. Realizing that he is unscathed, he quickly gets to his feet and runs away. When Johnny tries to explain what happened to Rebecca, she laughs him off, assuming that he is high but on their way out of town the next day, caught up in an argument, Johnny accidentally hits a homeless guy, breaking his leg in the process. As the man squirms on the ground in agony, his leg covered in blood, Johnny holds his hands over the man and like before, prays aloud to God and in an instant, the man’s leg is miraculously healed.

Stunned, Rebecca apologizes to Johnny for not believing him earlier and takes great comfort in the fact that her man is a healer. A few miles down the road though, the couple are pulled over by a cop for expired tags and when he asks to see Johnny’s identification and proof of insurance, Johnny hesitates, knowing that if he opens the glove box, his gun will be visible to the cop, and that he could be arrested for the shooting he was involved in earlier. Upon further insistence from the officer, Johnny panics and shoots him and then drives away. Terrified of what could happen to them, Rebecca demands that he go back and use his healing powers. Johnny quickly regains his composure and agrees but when they near the cop’s body, several other police cars have converged on the area and Johnny is forced to turn the car around and drive off. He tells Rebecca that their only option is to head for the Mexican border and once they cross over, and the heat dies down, they will make a new life for themselves. They stop in a small town at a gas station to stock up on supplies but once inside, a state trooper begins asking them questions about where they came from and where they are headed. Rebecca, already filled with anxiety and trepidation from their earlier altercation, pulls out a gun and shoots the trooper and the store clerk dead, forcing the couple to leave town fast. With nothing left to lose, they make a beeline for the border, but will they make it?

While “The Lucky Man” will elicit comparisons to Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” and Arthur Penn’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” for me, the movie it most resembles, is Emilio Estevez’s 1987 superbly directed, “Wisdom,” which starred Estevez and then girlfriend Demi Moore, and told the story of a young couple who embark on a cross-country bank-robbing spree in order to aid American farmers. “The Lucky Man” sets out to tell Johnny and Rebecca’s story but along the way, director Norman Gregory McGuire introduces a plethora of characters and sub-plots that sometimes sidetrack the main narrative and while ambitious in its undertaking, many are never brought to fruition. McGuire, in his feature film directorial debut, shows a natural gift for storytelling and stylistic camera movement. We can always tell what is transpiring onscreen because the action takes place within the frame, as opposed to so many other features that feel the incessant need to shake the camera to such an extent, one could be forgiven for thinking an earthquake is occurring. While the movie subscribes to convention, Jesse James elevates it above board and gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as a spiritually troubled protagonist, desperately wanting to do the right thing, but not always knowing how. The movie was shot in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico and McGuire does an excellent job of showcasing each state.

“The Lucky Man” is currently doing the Film Festival circuit

Lucky Man 2017 Trailer from theluckyman on Vimeo.
 

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James McDonald

Originally from Dublin, Ireland, James is a Movie Critic with 40 years of experience in the film industry as an Award-Winning Filmmaker. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association.