Who among us hasn’t dreamt of winning the bid stage on “The Price Is Right” and maybe getting a chance to spin the big wheel? The allure of game shows is that they are fun, tense, and possibly life-altering. That’s why no matter what era in media it is, they are always a sure thing. You’ll never run out of people wanting to finish the phrase on “Wheel of Fortune” for an indiscriminate amount of money they might not see otherwise. Plus, an underdog story is damn near irresistible to pass up. Samir Oliveros’s “The Luckiest Man in America” transports you to a time in 1984 when game shows were the bedrock of daytime television. Production designer Lulú Salgado gets all the aesthetics of vintage CBS, from the clothing, the backlots, and the transitions in how television was presented.
At the heart of it all is a somewhat tweaked retelling of an actual story of “Press Your Luck” contestant Michael Larson‘s (Paul Walter Hauser) over twenty year record of winning $111,000 on the show. Larson’s story is one to root for. When he rolls up to auditions in California, he’s an unemployed ice cream truck driver from Lebanon, Ohio. (He even drives there in the same truck the entire way.) When you learn about him, Larson tells the producers how his family made it a ritual to watch the show, and any of the winnings would help him get back on his feet. Well, there’s one problem. Michael is not initially who he says he is, and they quickly dismiss him. However, in a stroke of luck and/or empathy, executive Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn) decides to give him a chance. It at least looks as though the circumstances around his story check out.
Brian Geraghty, Paul Walter Hauser, and Patti Harrison in Samir Oliveros’s THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release
Larson doesn’t initially have the best first round, which includes answering trivia questions to gather spins and take a crack at the big board later. But the second round was when his fortunes started to turn around. If you aren’t familiar with or haven’t seen “Press Your Luck” in a while, each contestant has a button. A random pattern of lights runs throughout the big board, highlighting money amounts, prizes, and “Whammies, ” ultimately taking your earnings to zero. If you get a successful press, you get to keep going. Boy, does Larson have the hot hand. His presses quickly get him past the actual show record, much to the surprise of charismatic host Peter Tomarken (Walton Goggins) and the collection of higher-ups.
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How is Larson pulling this off? I will leave you for you to discover, but like his casting call, Larson is not the ragtag person trying to escape hardship in the way he portrays. To fill out a bit of the actual 1984 story, Oliveros and co-writer Maggie Briggs tries to give “The Luckiest Man In America” a bit of backstory while all being contained on the game show lot. Most of this works partly because of Hauser’s portrayal of Michael Larson and some complexities surrounding his personality.
While on the game show, Larson is giddy and easy to get behind. He has that “gee golly, happy to be here” essence. Behind the scenes, Hauser switches gears and exhibits sides to this character that make you believe Larson is not so wholesome. He curses a lot and is uncharasatically nervous. “The Luckiest Man In America” is at its best when it focuses on the tense nature within the show – a cat-and-mouse game between an unstoppable contestant and a network that doesn’t quite know what to do. The film tries to make you feel conflicted about Larson with things about his past and motivations concerning his family, which don’t hit the mark all the way. There’s a moment that stops the natural, frenetic pacing of these events to deliver a monologue as a way to hit an emotional beat. But the film would have been better not to reevaluate and tap at that specific point. If anything, the complicated story of a shady man and the multifaceted ways the network has to tackle this real-time situation is good on its own.
Even when trying to stretch this story into different quadrants, “The Luckiest Man In America” is still worth the spin because of the cast, and the core idea moves things along considerably. Maybe the television show isn’t as prominent in today’s streaming age, but the feelings of money suddenly curing ills and shortcomings definitely is.
