Lucky Day (2019) [Blu-Ray]

Director: Roger Avary

Cast: Luke Bracey, Nina Dobrev, Crispin Glover

Release Date: December 10, 2019

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 4/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

Synopsis:

Writer-Director Roger Avary, the Oscar®-winning co-writer of Pulp Fiction and Killing Zoe, lends his high-energy, bone-crunching style to this crime saga starring Crispin Glover, Nina Dobrev, and Luke Bracey. Finally out of prison, safecracker Red (Bracey) rejoins his wife (Dobrev) and daughter and vows to go straight. But psychotic French hitman Luc (Glover) has also come to town, seeking revenge against Red for the death of Luc’s brother — leading to a very unlucky showdown.

‘Lucky Day’ tells the violent tale of fresh out of prison safecracker Red (Bracey) who is finally home with his beloved wife (Dobrev) and ready to start anew. But as sadistic French hitman Luc (Glover) arrives in the country with the sole intention of revenge against Red, things quickly become dangerous when Luc makes his way through the city dropping bodies left and right in search of his quarry. As the madman rips his way through body after body making his way closer to his mark, everything builds to an inevitable showdown that could result in anyone’s favor.

Written and directed by Roger Avary (Killing Zoe, The Rules of Attraction) who does a great job of capturing beautiful shots and smooth movement within ‘Lucky Day’ but struggles in making many elements of the story itself work. The film includes a cast that features a number of talented folks and includes Luke Bracey (Hacksaw Ridge), Nina Dobrev (The Final Girls), Crispin Glover (TV’s American Gods), Clé Bennett (Jigsaw), Clifton Collins Jr. (The Mule), Tomer Sisley (We’re The Millers), Nadia Farès (War 2007) and Mark Dacascos (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) along with more, the majority offering decent enough and fitting performances for the most part in their respective roles.

‘Lucky Day’ initially hints at having promise and serves up a collection of questionable characters with some solid star power portraying them and takes viewers along on a wild, nonsensical and over the top thriller that has its moments, but sadly falters and fails more than it succeeds. Clumsily coming together into a fairly ridiculous and cliché filled exercise that seems to be more interested in being strange, offbeat and politically incorrect than it is in crafting a story and characters we can actually care about, ‘Lucky Day’ never really manages to find a balance or style that works and instead almost desperately leaps from one silly or nonsensical moment to the next while rarely bothering to take a minute to make things knot together in a satisfying manner. Granted the film does manage to provide some enjoyable and notably bloody chaos along the way as it struggles to bring its characters to a conclusion and the capable cast helps to keep things running much smoother than it might have otherwise. Crispin Glover’s ridiculously over the top and psychotic portrayal of our lead baddie is definitely one saving grace within, but sadly still not quite enough to save this mess of a film from itself. For fans of the key cast (particularly Glover) and those who enjoy the work of filmmaker Roger Avary (who has certainly delivered some noteworthy offerings over the years) it may be worth checking out whenever convenient, although I wouldn’t suggest going out of your way to do so.

Overall, ‘Lucky Day’ does have its charms such as the ever enjoyable Crispin Glover’s amusingly over the top performance as our off the hinges foreign hitman and some undeniably fun shootouts and violent moments sprinkled throughout, yet unfortunately it’s not nearly enough to save this clunky mess of a film. Those who are already excited about checking it out as well as fans of the main cast members and/or of filmmaker Roger Avary will probably still want to give ‘Lucky Day’ a chance in order to decide for themselves (although I’d suggest at least renting the film before dropping the money on a blind purchase of the Blu-ray release just to be safe), while those who are on the fence about it will probably be better off just skipping it, or at least waiting for it to pop up on your favorite premium channel or streaming service down the road.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Lucky Day’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 2.40:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks great altogether and offers a sharp, smooth and richly detailed presentation from start to finish, with no notable faults or troubles to be uncovered along the way. It holds up quite capably even during the fast moving and/or darkly lit moments throughout, never resulting in anything occurring onscreen becoming negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, this is a solid high definition video presentation that delivers nicely throughout and should not disappoint.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack provides a clean, crisp and frequently quite aggressive audio presentation throughout. It repeatedly takes advantage of all five available channels in order to send music, bullets, vehicle activity and more throughout the various speakers whenever fitting, and never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, this is a great 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that nicely compliments the onscreen chaos and violence while delivering in every way necessary.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Lucky Day’ doesn’t include any bonus content aside from the film’s ‘Official Trailer’ (running approximately 2 minutes in length).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 4/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

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‘Lucky Day’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Grindstone Entertainment Group & Lionsgate Home Entertainment

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