THE LUCKY ONES, the new film by Neil Burger, tells of three injured soldiers on leave and brought together due to cancelled flights.  TK (Michael Cena), injured at his tool is given leave to visit his fiancée.  Cheever’s (Tim Robbins) bad back allows him a return home while slightly crippled Colee (Rachel McAdams) wishes to return a guitar to her deceased lover’s family.  How coincidental?

The film is advertised as a timely drama about life of today’s America.

Everyone in THE LUCKY ONES appears to trying too hard to make the film work.  And it is easy to see where things go wrong – of course, much more difficult in pointing out how to make the better film.  For one, unlike William Wyler’s similar themed feature about ex-soldiers of WW2, this one is about an aftermath of war that the U.S. did not or is not winning.  The contrast of the Wyler film is definitely more effective.  In THE LUCKY ONES, audiences are already fed up with the negatives of America going to war in foreign countries.

The characters are stereotyped.  As expected, Cheever returns to a home where things have changed.  Wife has moved on and son wants support for Stanford after receiving a part scholarship.  The film could have dealt with this part scholarship issue – often a means to lure more funds towards certain programs in funds needed Discipline.  Colee’s character is the dumb rather than intelligent female who goes to war for the wrong reasons.  Returning the valuable guitar is not the brightest or most intelligent thing to do.  She has all heart – one will admit – but only for the purpose of Burger’s script, which he co-wrote.  As for the TK character, again another stereotyped character of a soldier who thinks he is smarter than he really is and wants who thinks only with his willy.

It does not help that Burger ends most segments on a high note (the winning of a fight; hope in the form of an appraised guitar etc.) or on humour.  With three characters in tow, one cannot help but cringe when realizing that all the problems of the three have to be resolved for the story’s closure.  The tying in of the stories does not help either.

I did not like Burger’s previous entry THE ILLUSIONIST for its glossiness and pretentiousness – elements of which are present too in THE LUCKY ONES.  For a film supposedly to be an earnest tribute to the soldiers fighting for their country, THE LUCKY ONES fails to achieve anything but a worthless effort.  Don’t expect this film to be anywhere close to William Wyler’s THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.