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You would never guess that Nora Ephron directed Lucky Numbers. The woman who's famous for romantic schmaltz like Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail directs her latest film with a much sharper hand. Sometimes too sharp.

John Travolta (Pulp Fiction) is Russ Richards, a famous weatherman on a local Harrisburg, Penn. television station. Everywhere he goes, young women squeal and older men ask for his autographs. He's so successful he drives a Jaguar and has a reserved booth at the local Denny's. Unfortunately, Russ's finances aren't as prosperous as they first appear. Past business endeavors have fallen flat, and now his new snowmobile dealership is going bankrupt.

Needing help, he turns to Gig (Tim Roth, Gridlock'd), a strip-club owner who advises Richards pay someone to rob the snowmobiles and then collect the insurance. When that plan fails, Gig suggests that Russ hook up with Crystal Latroy (Lisa Kudrow, Opposite of Sex), who's the Lotto ball lady at the TV station, and find a way to fix the lottery. That turns out to be surprisingly easy--that is until all their acquaintances find out about it and want a piece of the action. How Russ attempts to buy his way out of this ever-deepening mess provides both the conflict and humor.

Unfortunately, the acting and writing are uneven. Travolta is fantastic as a squeaky-clean celebrity who finds himself mired in a situation he can't control. His comic instincts are fabulous, and his dramatic scenes carry the story. Even better is Tim Roth, whose elegant but slippery night-club proprietor is pitch-perfect. And Michael Rapaport (Bamboozled), as Dale the Thug, is great as a hood who demands more and more of the loot.

On the minus side of the ledger are Ed O'Neill (Married with Children) as the TV station's manager who wants both the money and Crystal, Bill Pullman (Lost Highway) as a lazy cop investigating the case, filmmaker Michael Moore as a pathetic, sex-starved fundamentalist, and Kudrow as the greedy bombshell. Kudrow's turn is the most disappointing, as I thought her performance in Opposite of Sex was one of the best of 1998. Here she's reduced to a shrill, selfish caricature, or as Richards puts it, "a twisted psycho-bitch."

Certainly part of the problem is with Adam Resnick's script, which alternates moments of hilarity with uncomfortable and unproductive episodes of violence. Ephron, who's never been known for her command of dark comedy, has no idea of what to do with the latter segments, instead leaving the actors to flounder in directionless scenes.

Despite those drawbacks, Lucky Numbers is filled with enough laughs (there's an amazing visual gag involving a semi-truck) and good performances that it's probably worth a look. Certainly not a Jaguar but much better than a reserved table at Denny's. 

J. Robert Parks 10/23/2000