The Luckiest Man in America has a hook that practically sells itself: the real 1984 Press Your Luck taping where contestant Michael Larson figured out the board’s pattern and just kept winning. The director and cast clearly understand how inherently cinematic that setup is, which is why the first half of the film hums along. Paul Walter Hauser plays Larson as an overeager, slightly slippery everyman who has convinced himself that cracking a game show will finally prove he is not ordinary. The movie is at its liveliest in the TV studio, watching him time his button presses to avoid the Whammy, watching the dollar amounts stack, and cutting to the increasingly horrified and impressed control room.
Walton Goggins is a smart choice as host Peter Tomarken, playing the genial showman who has to keep smiling as someone quietly breaks his show. David Strathairn, as executive producer Bill Carruthers, brings that weary network pragmatism to the “is this cheating or great television” debate.
Once the film leaves the stage lights it loses shape. Instead of staying locked in the absurdity of a guy beating daytime TV, The Luckiest Man in America tries to turn into a character study about obsession and low level American desperation. Which could work, especially with someone like Hauser, but the script never finds a fresh angle on Larson. It wants him to be both a folk hero and a sad grifter and it does not really commit to either, so the back half plays like a slower, less fun version of what we just watched.
The scenes of network brass waffling over whether to bury the episode or air it for ratings start repeating the same point without deepening it, and the attempt to frame the scandal as a marketing opportunity feels more mechanical than insightful.
What does work all the way through is the period texture. The movie nails the cheap glitz of 1980s syndicated game shows, from the jackets to the lighting to the way audiences react to each big spin. The supporting cast around Hauser and Goggins (Shamier Anderson, Brian Geraghty, Patti Harrison, Maisie Williams) is stacked with players who can sell a single reaction shot, which helps keep the TV floor material buoyant even when the drama upstairs is less convincing.
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It is a modest movie with two pretty different energies fighting each other. The studio material is tight, funny, and suspenseful because the stakes are instantly clear. The psychological half, where we are supposed to really peer into why Michael Larson needed to do this, never lands a punch. The Luckiest Man in America is worth seeing for Hauser squaring off with Walton Goggins inside a lovingly recreated Press Your Luck episode, but it is hard not to wish the filmmakers had trusted that part of the story and let the rest go.
Score: 5/10
The Luckiest Man in America (2025)
- Cast: Paul Walter Hauser, Walton Goggins, Shamier Anderson, David Strathairn, Brian Geraghty, Patti Harrison, Maisie Williams
- Director: Samir Oliveros
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
- Runtime: 90 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: April 4, 2025
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