Ever heard the phrase, "Big bucks! No Whammies!"? Know where that's from? If you're a Gen Xer, you're likely to know that was from a game show called Press Your Luck. A mash-up of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, it had a trivia question phase where contestants garnered "spins" leading to the centerpiece of the show where a square of 18 screens would flash various dollar amounts and prizes while a lighted rim on the screens indicate what you'd win when you slapped down the Big Red Button. Hit a dollar amount and win money. Hit the cartoon demon "Whammie" screen - like Wheel's "Bankrupt" space - and you lose it all.
On May 19, 1984, an ice cream truck driver from Ohio named Michael Larson appeared on Press Your Luck and after a shaky start began to live the title of DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" by nailing a seemingly impossible string of big bucks with no Whammies leading to an at-the-time highest winnings ever on a game show, relieving the show of over $110,000 in cash and prizes. This achievement and the freakout behind-the-scenes with the show's producers is dramatized in The Luckiest Man in America.
It begins with the slovenly and somewhat creepy Larson (Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell) attempting to audition for the show by assuming the identity of another applicant. Despite being escorted off the property by security, the show's executive producer, Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn, The Expanse), takes a shine to him and allows him to participate in the next day's taping provided he tidy up his appearance and get better clothes. Larson goes to a thrift store, rips a button off a jacket to get a discount for its condition, and returns with a nice shirt and jacket over khaki shorts.
As mentioned above, ones he gets rolling, he gets ROLLING, and the bulk of the movie is about the freakout of the production team as they try to figure out how he's doing it. They deduce that he has somehow memorized the patterns of the board which appeared random but weren't. Is he cheating or could he be a boon in publicity? (And if memorizing the limited patterns - there were only five variations - is cheating, would studying trivia be cheating for Jeopardy.)
While the movie opens with a disclaimer about creative license being taken in its dramatization of real events, the script co-written by director Samir Oliveros (whose sole previous feature was something called Bad Lucky Goat) really stretches credibility as a producer, Chuck (Shamier Anderson, Mr. Nobody in John Wick 4), breaks into Larson's truck, finds video tapes, watches them, and deduces how Larson figured out the patterns, but also calls someone with a restraining order against him, all while the show is taping. TV shows generally go "live to tape" with minimal editing and the pauses shown and the amount of gumshoeing Chuck does simply couldn't happen. The details about his family are also muddled and enhance Larson's creepiness.
Hauser has cornered the market on tubby, creepy characters and he does the same here. From the bits of the actual show I've seen, Larson wasn't that oddball. The supporting performances from Straithairn, Anderson, and Walton Goggins as show host Peter Tomarken are good, but why is Maisie Williams (Throne Games) here as a production assistant? She's not bad, but it's distracting that an English girl is working at CBS Television City.
While The Luckiest Man in America isn't a bad docudrama, it could've been tighter and structured differently rather than trying to cram everything into 90-minutes. If you want to see the real, the Press Your Luck episodes are on YouTube along with GSN's - Game Show Network - documentary Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal exploring the events. (Haven't watched it yet, but hear it's good.) There's also a substantial Wikipedia entry which illuminates the differences between reality and dramatization.
Score: 6/10. Catch it on cable/streaming. (Currently on AMC+)
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