Press Your Luck, an American game show that first aired in 1983, is arguably most notable for contributing the expression “No Whammies, stop!” to the pop culture lexicon. That phrase, which refers to the program’s feisty red mascot who nullifies all accumulated prizes if landed on, became something of a battle cry for contestants, who hoped to win it big as each consecutive press of the buzzer grew riskier and riskier. It’s a game that favors a fast hand over any sort of learned knowledge, and on May 19, 1984, an ice cream truck driver from Ohio successfully avoided numerous whammies to win an unprecedented $100,000 during a taping of the show. This true-life event is dramatized in The Luckiest Man in America, which explores the events on that fateful day at CBS’s Los Angeles studio, where executives witnessed an unassuming man walk away with a fortune. In that, there’s an underdog aspect to Luckiest Man that is undeniably appealing, watching as one man did the unimaginable and beat a seemingly rigged system. But beyond capitalizing on the average viewer’s joy for watching the little guy win, director Samir Oliveros offers little to justify the film’s existence, often struggling even to stretch this unique moment in television history into a reasonable 90 minutes of runtime.
Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser) has traveled from Lebanon, Ohio, to LA in order to audition for a spot on Press Your Luck, his favorite game show. An awkward man who submits his application under a false identity, Michael is initially rebuffed by no-nonsense production vetter Chuck (Shamier Anderson) before being welcomed with open arms by Press Your Luck co-creator Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn), who recognizes the kindly ice cream truck driver’s potential for entertaining television. Donning a blazer from a thrift store, Michael is ready for his small-screen debut, taking his place in between fellow contestants Ed (Brian Geraghty) and Janie (Patti Harrison), while presenter Peter Tomarken (Walton Goggins) kicks off the proceedings. As the show progresses, Michael demonstrates a considerable knack for controlling the board, dodging whammies left and right as he racks up some serious cash and prizes, soon amassing a pot that grows from $4,000 to $8,000 to $16,000. When it’s evident the Midwestern man has no designs on slowing down, the studio executives scramble to stop Michael from bankrupting the show.
As it would turn out, Michael’s skill with Press Your Luck was actually not luck, but good, old-fashioned research. Studying hours of tapings, Michael discovered that the whammy board was not in fact randomized, but merely five different patterns that alternated after each play. By memorizing the patterns, Michael effectively found a loophole to exploit the game’s design and emerge as the show’s single most victorious contestant. With regard to narrative structure, Luckiest Man primarily sticks to that infamous taping of the show, reveling in the fashion and hairstyles of the 1980s while also spending much of its time in the control room, allowing tension to mount as producers witness the ultimate in worst-case scenario. Performances are universally strong and sell the drama well, with Hauser turning in another great performance as a socially awkward, persecuted everyman, and his impressive work here helps carry the film across the finish line, where the thrill of watching him succeed is just as enjoyable as watching the showrunners sink further and further into resigned desperation.
The problem, then, is that director Oliveros — who co-wrote the screenplay with Maggie Briggs — has little more to offer than a pro forma dramatization of the day’s events. Both screenwriters seem to anticipate this problem, and so seek to expand the story into a proper narrative. But the result is an unwise decision to dig into Michael’s family life, finding the future game show champion desperate to make a call back home to his estranged wife and daughter, layering in extraneous drama to no discernible end. This time spent focusing on Michael’s family grinds the game show proceedings to the halt, and Oliveros even wastes further time with a bizarre, surreal moment in which Michael stumbles from the set of Press Your Luck to a taping of The Leon Hart Show (where the fictional host is played by Johnny Knoxville, of all people). More tangible thorniness could have been built from the fact that Larson was a bona fide conman, responsible for several multi-level marketing and get-rich quick schemes, but Oliveros has no interest in exploring that side of the man, offering very little to develop such a thread other than fleeting glimpses of fake IDs and multiple license plates stashed in Larson’s ice cream truck. Even a restraining order is only given a passing reference. Which is to say, there are many paths the film could have taken to augment or enrich its stranger-than-fiction core narrative, but it ultimately lands on the least interesting one. The Luckiest Man in America is a clear case of bad decisions, luck having nothing to do with the middling final product.
DIRECTOR: Samir Oliveros; CAST: Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, Shamier Anderson, David Strathairn, Maisie Williams; DISTRIBUTOR: IFC Films; IN THEATERS: April 4; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 30 min.
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