Atlantic City Weekly

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American moviegoers have consistently rejected movies with an Iraq-war theme, both good (In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Stop-Loss) and bad (Redacted). The Lucky Ones has perhaps already suffered that same fate. There was only one other person at the Friday afternoon show I attended, but it is worth noting that this Iraq spin on a Best Years of Our Lives-theme, is low-key, touching and worth seeing, in particular for the performances.

Co-written (with Dirk Wittenborn) and directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist), this film, like Stop-Loss released earlier this year, is a look not at war, but at the everyday lives of soldiers who come home to an uncertain future. United by nothing more than their shared understanding of army life in wartime, a trio of soldiers on leave with injuries -- Cheever (Tim Robbins), Colee (Rachel McAdams) and TK (Michael Peña) -- find themselves at loose ends when there are no planes available to get them out of New York and home. The trio decides to share a rental car and thus begins a road trip that will include a bar fight (no real surprise there), revelations about the fragility of "keeping the home fires burning" and a desire to make fast money in Vegas.

There are no shattering revelations, just some bitter disappointments, moments of frustration and sadness and a few good laughs scattered in between. The actors are excellent. Excellence is what we have come to expect from Robbins, and after his performance in World Trade Center, from Peña. McAdams is the revelation here. The star of The Hot Chick and Red Eye expands her range as the fragile Colee, who wants to return the guitar of her dead soldier boyfriend to his parents. Of course, things are never what one expects, and that's the beauty of The Lucky Ones, a simple movie about soldiers who are still on bumpy ground even when they are back on the homefront. n

The Lucky Ones ***
Co-written & directed by Neil Burger; rated PG13

To read more about movies and other topics covered by movie critic Lori Hoffman under her blog alias Moviejunkie, visit http://blogs.atlanticcityweekly.com/

An Unforgettable Icon

Paul Newman might have been the perfect movie star. Not only was he talented and gorgeous, he was a great humanitarian and a loyal husband, married for 50 years to Joanne Woodward. When I heard during this year's Toronto Film Festival that he was dying, I didn't want to believe it. Beyond the obvious choices of his best work, a couple of my favorites were from his early days, The Long Hot Summer (1958) and The Young Philadelphians (1959). In the former he played Ben Quick, a man running from his past, befriended by a rich man played by Orson Welles. It was his first film with his wife Joanne and the sparks fly in their love scenes. The Young Philadelphians is melodrama with a soap opera side about the rise of a young, ambitious lawyer. Newman's character redeems himself when he defends a friend (Robert Vaughn) accused of murder in some terrific courtroom scenes. Newman should have won his Oscar for playing a washed-up lawyer in Sidney Lumet's 1982 film, The Verdict. Everybody knew it, so when he lost, his next worthy role earned the prize, four years later for The Color of Money.

My mom's favorite is also one of mine, The Sting, which immediately makes you think of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Hustler still holds up as a brilliant look at a man who loses his soul and then regains it. There are so many others: Slapshot, Cool Hand Luke, Nobody's Fool, Hud, Harper, Sometimes A Great Notion (his excellent directorial debut), Fort Apache The Bronx and Twilight, the latter being an underappreciated detective flick with a great cast (Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, James Garner, Reese Witherspoon). There are even some guilty pleasures like The Prize and A New Kind of Love.

We all have our Newman favorites, even when it comes to his line of foods, the proceeds of which have earned $250 million for various charities.

Paul Newman was a man of honor and charity, a race car driver and a brilliant actor. He will be missed.

OPENING THIS WEEK

An American Carol Airplane! director David Zucker takes satircal jabs at liberal filmmaker Michael Moore with Kevin Farley, playing "Michael Malone," a documentary director who wants to abolish the Fourth of July. But when he is visited by three spirits, he begins to change his anti-American tune. With Kelsey Grammer, country singer Trace Adkins, Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight, Zucker favorite Leslie Nielsen and a cameo appearance by Bill O'Reilly.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua A talking dog movie about the pampered pooches of the title. Stars a lot of little dogs, Jamie Lee Curtis and the voices of Drew Barrymore, Andy Garcia, Pl�cido Domingo, George Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Paul Rodriguez and Cheech Marin.

Blindness A political drama from Fernando Meirelles (City of God) about an epidemic of blindness that rapidly infects a city and brings fear and panic. Stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal.