The Lucky One

The film is very easy on the eye, when I say 'the film', I mean Zac Efron and the beautiful scenery, but mainly Zac Efron, and that's about it.

Starring: Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Riley Thomas Stewart & Jay R. Ferguson
Dir: Scott Hicks
Writers: Will Fetters (Nicholas Sparks - Novel)

'Brooding' - this happens a lot in The Lucky One

What's it all about?
Hunky marine Logan Thibault (Zac Efron - who is all muscly and grown-up) has just returned from his third tour of duty in Iraq and has been lucky enough to survive some extreme circumstances when many of his friends and comrades have not. What he believes made him so fortunate was a photo of a woman, with the message 'Stay Safe x' on the back that he found in some rubble. Coincidently, when he moved to pick it up, a bomb went off in the place he had just been standing. Feeling a little lost back home, he decides to travel to Colarado to find this mystery woman. And as luck would have it, he finds her (all too easily) - a beautiful girl by the name of Beth (Taylor Schilling) running a dog kennel with her grandmother (Blythe Danner) and son. Unable to find the words to explain himself, Logan takes a job there and gradually grows closer to Beth and her family. He hangs around, doing typically masculine chores, training the dogs, flexing his muscles, as well as showing his sensitive side and ultimately, making Beth swoon. And all this is done despite constantly being eye-balled by the town Deputy-Sherrif, Beth's jealous ex-husband, Keith. From then on it's the typical lovey-dovey predictability of any of the other Nicholas Sparks adaptations you may have seen.


Worth a watch?
I will admit, I am slightly biased here, as I have had a huge crush on Zac Efron for the last six years or so. I had been counting down to the release of this film, hailed as the movie that would remove Efron from 'tween pin-up' status, to see what his acting skills were really like. Ok, really I just wanted to see him topless in THAT shower scene you catch a glimpse of in the trailer. But, in all honestly, the film was a let down. It has beautiful scenery of the American swamplands, and in the words of my mother, "Zac Efron is very easy on the eye". The story is so predictable though, you can tell how it's going to end up within the first 20 minutes. But I enjoyed the remaining hour and a half lusting after the gorgeous Zac, and to be fair he played the character quite well, even if he is impossibly perfect: strong, handsome, brave, helpful, good with kids and animals, well read, plays the piano, the list goes on....


Let down?
Yes, for me it was a let-down. Obviously I wasn't expecting anything incredible from a Sparks adaptation, but it was no Notebook. I cry at anything remotely sad, and from this sort of film, I was expecting to have to have the tissues at the ready. Disappointingly, I was rather nonplused: it was sad, but I didn't shed any tears. Story-wise, you get as much enjoyment out of the trailer and the poster than you do from the film.


So overall...
It's a sickly sweet film, made even sweeter by the masculine eye-candy of it's male lead - so good job I've got a sweet tooth for Zac Efron. But unfortunately it was a bit too sweet for me. It's a good love-story to turn your brain off to, but don't expect it to blow you away.

• Lives up to expectation  0/2
• Scenery/Effects 2/3
• Eye Candy 3/2 - Zac gets a bonus point!
• Quality of Acting 2/3
• Plot 1/5
• Quality of film within it's genre: Drama 1/5 , Romance 1/5

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