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In terms of actors, there were very few like Harry Dean Stanton. He could bring emotion and eccentricity to a role like few others. Whether it being a "space trucker" in Alien, Molly Ringwald's father in Pretty in Pink or any one of his collaborations with David Lynch, Stanton was a icon of cinema. His presence though always felt like seeing an old friend, a sense of comfort seeing his withered, story driven face. Other than Paris Texas, Stanton was only litigated to supporting and minor roles in films. Appropriately, for one of his final performances, Stanton was given the chance in the spotlight again.

Lucky isn't a film about much. Directed by John Carroll Lynch (another great character actor) in his directorial debut, it simply follows the everyday routine of Lucky (played by Stanton) and the interactions he has with many of the local townsfolk. Lucky seemed like the role that Harry Dean was always born to play. It could almost be considered a companion piece to the 2013 documentary on Stanton, Partly Fiction. It incorporates much of Stanton's real-life philosophy, dry wit and even his musical ability into the final product as well. It feels like Lucky is just an extension of Stanton's personality which is absolutely wonderful. He was born to play this role and it would be a crime to see anyone else play Lucky. There's wonderful cameos from many different great actors including Ron Livingston, Tom Skerritt, Ed Begley Jr and of course his long-time collaborator David Lynch. All of them bring a wonderful warmth to their performance, despite their brief screen time (Lynch in particular, has a wonderful monologue about his lost tortoise 'President Roosevelt').

This is very much a character piece over a narrative piece which may put some viewers off. However, to anyone that enjoys these types of movies with philosophical contemplation with wonderful characters and dialogue, this is certainly a movie for you. It serves as a great ending to Hollywood's best character actor.

Lucky is the directorial debut of prolific actor John Carroll Lynch, who has worked with everyone from John Woo to David Fincher to Martin Scorsese, and appeared in recurring roles on TV shows such as The Drew Carey Show (1995), Carnivàle (2003), and American Horror Story (2011). However, more noteworthy than this is that Lucky features the last performance from the legendary Harry Dean Stanton, who was 90 at the time of shooting, and who died on September 15, 2017, two weeks prior to the film's North American release. Written specifically for Stanton by Logan Sparks (one of his closest friends) and Drago Sumonja, the film is a meditation on mortality, and is as much about Stanton himself as it is the eponymous character he's playing. Beginning like a quirky comedy full of strange characters with gentle eccentricities (imagine a David Lynch film softened by John Waters), the film later morphs into a more serious meditation on how a nonagenarian atheist with no family faces up to the fact that death is not that far away. Moving entirely at its own measured pace, the film manages to explore a plethora of themes along the way; mortality, routine, impermanence, friendship, love, loss, regret, hope. Laid back and tender, graceful and sedate, Lucky works primarily by way of presenting individual vignettes that very much add up to more than the sum of their parts.

The film tells the story of Lucky (Stanton), a 90-year-old living in an unnamed backwater town on the edge of an Arizonan desert. An atheist who doesn't believe in an afterlife or the soul, never married, and with no children, he is happy to explain to people that he's alone, but he is not lonely. Living his life by way of a rigid routine, Lucky's day begins with yoga exercises, followed by a walk to the local diner, where he chats with owner Joe (Barry Shabaka Henley) and waitress Loretta (Yvonne Huff Lee), and completes the crossword in the paper. Visiting the local shop run by Bibi (Bertila Damas), he buys a pack of cigarettes, and then returns home to spend a few hours watching game shows. At night, he heads to a bar owned by Elaine (Beth Grant) and her husband Paulie (James Darren), where he trades stories with his best friend, Howard (David Lynch; yes, that David Lynch), and barman Vincent (Hugo Armstrong). However, when he falls for no apparent reason one morning, the local doctor, Kneedler (Ed Begley Jr.), tries to explain that at his age, the body simply starts to break down. On the other hand, Kneedler is unable to find anything seriously wrong with him, despite his nicotine addiction, pointing out that trying to get him off cigarettes would probably do him more harm than good. Meanwhile, he continues with his routine, albeit more aware that he doesn't have a huge amount of time left. Over the next few days, he attends Bibi's son's birthday party, encounters life-insurance man Bobby (Ron Livingston), who he feels is exploiting Howard, and trades stories from the Battle of Okinawa with former marine Fred (Tom Skerritt).

And that's about it. That's the plot (if you can even call it that), and it should be obvious that this is a character-driven film, where the vagaries of a well-laid plot simply don't factor into things. That this is the case is signalled in the slow and methodical opening sequence, which depicts Lucky ambling past boarded-up and dust covered shops, as the hot sun beats down. This is an especially well-handled example of form and content mirroring one another, as the lethargic pace playing out on screen (no one ever seems to be in a rush) correlates with the lethargic pace of the editing rhythm (Lynch allows the scenes and the characters plenty of room to breathe, unburdened with trying to race to the next pivotal plot-point).

This sequence also works to set up the style and tone which the film will adopt for the remainder of its runtime. Rather than a standard cause-and-effect narrative, Lucky is instead built upon a series of small, usually idiosyncratic, moments, often with only the barest amount of connective tissue between them. Neither does Lucky, nor any of the other characters, have what you would call a significant character arc. He doesn't encounter something which forces him to go on a metaphorical/spiritual journey, arriving at some kind of universal truth which softens his gruff exterior. Instead, he's essentially the same man when the film ends as he was when it began, which is, of course, the entire point.

Also in the opening sequence, prior to seeing Lucky wandering around town, the film features a series of shots of the barren desert, with a tortoise slowly ambling into view. The film then cuts to Lucky waking up. This could have been a trite metaphor, but in actual fact, this tortoise becomes a plot-point later on; his name is President Roosevelt, and he belongs to Howard. However, he recently escaped from Howard's yard, sending the man into an emotional meltdown, as Roosevelt is his oldest friend. The missing tortoise is one of the few strands which occurs over multiple scenes, and is central to the way the film defines Howard's character, whilst Lucky's incredulity that Howard could be so upset over a tortoise affords him the opportunity for some nihilistic philosophising.

Indeed, in relation to philosophy/theology, Lucky's atheism is an important component of his character; he doesn't believe in God, an afterlife, or the soul, arguing instead that we only get one life, the corporeal one, and when we die, that's it, we turn to dust, and we're gone forever. However, as Lucky starts to become more and more conscious of the imminence of death, his darkly existentialist outlook starts to look less like a grumpy old man's innocent ramblings, and more like something which could genuinely make his last few years miserable. In relation to this, when Lucky goes to see Kneedling, the doctor stresses the fact that he is both blessed and cursed to have gotten as old as he has - blessed in the sense that very few people make it this far, cursed because physically, Lucky's body is beginning to fail him.

One of the major themes in the film is routine; Lucky's day is rigidly mapped out, to the point that if someone is sitting in his favourite diner seat, it throws him off and puts him in a bad mood. In this sense, repetition is a major part of both Lucky's life, and the film's structure (for example, we see him walking his route around town on four different occasions). Another important theme is impermanence, which ties into Lucky's rejection of a never-ending life after death. For example, when he visits a pet shop, he doesn't know what a "forever home" is, and even when it's explained to him, he still seems to be somewhat confused. Tied to this, the issue of mortality is brought up time and again, seen most clearly in Howard's dealings with Bobby, preparing for his own inevitable death. Indeed, it's worth pointing out that the five yoga exercises Lucky performs each morning are the Five Rites of Rejuvenation, so although he knows this life won't last forever, so too is he doing what he can to prolong it as much as possible. With this in mind, after he falls, the film shifts gears, changing from a pseudo-comic examination of a curmudgeonly old man into a subtle analysis of the inescapability of death and the transitory nature of existence.

The film also deals with the importance of small anecdotes and seemingly minor personal connections - scenes which aren't especially dramatic, but which tell us a huge amount about the characters. Working together, the acting, the expressive faces, the seemingly insignificant dialogue, the importance of routine, the crumbling town, the desert, all serve to create the whole, which conveys far more than any one aspect of the film could. However, this is not to say that individual scenes don't work, or are disposable. For example, several scenes contain achingly beautiful anecdotes; Lucky's story of accidentally killing a mockingbird as a child; Howard's narration of what he imagines President Roosevelt's birth must have been like; and, in a scene obviously paying homage to a very similar scene in The Straight Story (1999), Lucky and Fred swap heart-breaking stories of their time in the war (just like Lucky, Stanton was a cook on board the USS LST-970, which participated in the Battle of Okinawa). The film also contains one of the best lines I've heard in a long time - as Paulie is talking about how he used to be a bum worth nothing, but everything changed after he met Beth, he explains, "I'm still nothing, but now I have everything. Isn't that something?"

If I was to find fault, there would be a couple of things worth criticising. Although the film avoids mawkish sentimentality for almost its entire runtime, it does become a little maudlin towards the end. Additionally, by its very nature, the narrative is very episodic, which creates a slight impression of disconnection. For the most part, the tone and design of the film also work to keep the audience at arm's length, preventing us from becoming too emotionally involved with Lucky himself, something which I'm not entirely sure served the film, or the character, very well.

However, these are relatively minor flaws in an otherwise excellent film, and in the end, this is a fitting swan song for an actor of Stanton's calibre. And how many people can say they've appeared in their own filmic obituary?

If ever there was a deserving send off for a grand actor, then this be it.

As "Lucky", the cantankerous but lovable old sole, shuffling his way out of this mortal coil, Harry Dean Stanton is, as always, remarkable.

Striding with purpose, very slowly, through a very regimented daily routine - diner coffee, crossword, game shows, cactus watering, smokes, drinks at the local watering hole - Lucky is revealed as a complex, always thinking, opinionated, ready to drop the gloves, 91 year old.

There are several great performances, highlighted by David Lynch bemoaning the escape of his pet tortoise, but the film really belongs to Harry. Swiping some great real life histories (Stanton's stint with the Navy) blurs the line between fact and fiction just enough to act both as a fitting tribute and engrossing movie on it's own merit. This is a talkie, where action moves at a tortoise pace, but it matters not, for Lucky has that rare power to draw the audience right on in.

Among the many low key but brilliant highlights, is a stirring scene to which Johnny Cash sings Bonnie Prince Billie's "I See a Darkness".

Harry Dean Stanton was indeed Lucky.

In terms of humanity, Lucky is the simplest story I've ever connected to. Seeing it in theaters was one of the most emotional experiences I've ever had watching a movie.

Lucky walks the thin line between being an exploration of death and a celebration of life, because it manages to be both. Lucky is a character that at first couldn't care less about his mortality. He didn't think about it because he didn't have to. But when the effects of old age start to set in, Lucky can't help but see his own death everywhere. With the onset of this fear, he learns to embrace death - "realism", as said in the movie. However, this process was not so easy, as he first had to let go of his anger to understand the beauty and sadness in the experience of his whole life up until his old age, and everything he has yet to be a part of.

Many try to claim that movies "used to be simpler" and "had better stories" due to less technology, but I'll be damned if they aren't easier to connect to now than ever. Lucky follows suit of movies, loosely like "Manchester by the Sea", and greatly like "Paterson" which both came out within the past year. These movies pay homage to real life by stripping the substance down to normal human experiences that most end up having to face, and everyone can at least recognize. In particular, Lucky is that of accepting how everything in life will go away in time, so all that can be done is to experience it. This ephemeral experience of life is both beautiful and sad, as this movie is both about life and death.

The reason that a movie like Lucky hit me so hard was because it threw nothing in my face. I was so immersed in what felt like real life to me that it was as sudden as extreme as life can be when all the sudden it got so emotional, like in the bar. Lucky's stance in the bar, letting go and explaining his stance as a human being was one of the most emotionally moved I've ever been by a single scene. Again, this is because everything develops so naturally, and because I personally connect with what Stanton's character has to find his way back to after 90 some years of age - being able to smile. While all aspects of the filmmaking delivered this effect, I especially recognize the script and Stanton's performance for their organic emotional accomplishment within the story.

To me, Lucky owns up to the internal and external unknown. It represents the ongoing process of learning how to smile in a life that will continue to break you down.

Lucky is both eerie and alluring in that it hasn't just turned out to be Harry Dean Stanton's swan song, it's as if all of those involved in the making of it were watching the Grim Reaper approach Mr. Stanton from a distance during filming.They were certainly aware - and impressed - that he was 90 years old. There's not a bad performance in the whole film; everyone gives a thoughtful, elegant performance as if there is no room for childishness in the presence of the approaching death of their friend. Surely Mr. Stanton could feel to the core that his days were numbered, and wow did that make for an eloquent performance in a role perfectly suited for him. Despite Lucky being a film about the waning of life, it's not a morose film; the message seems to be that while death is scary, you can still smile at it, and still smile till the end. And while you lose some liveliness as you grow old, that doesn't mean that you have to lose your feistiness. As much as I enjoyed Lucky, I also believe that a good filmmaker could have followed almost any old man for a few weeks with a video camera and come up with an equally interesting film. Lucky is essentially one down-to-earth old man's tale of a rather unexciting present-day life, and that's about it...but maybe that's special in itself. Still, I didn't see a whole lot that was fantastic about it beyond Mr. Stanton's performance. But there's no denying that it's a well-made film, with poignant and sometimes amusing moments, moving stories from the distant past, and many good shots of the desolate, solitary desert.

When born actors live long enough to perfect their talent, and they share the insight that their characters experience in life, you get a masterpiece. But, like the Mona Lisa, viewers perceive nuance as THEY age; even though the painting ITSELF remains unchanged.

What cannot be seen with young eyes waits for older eyes to catch up. The younger viewer perceives the ironic as insight. The emotion they experience evolves from the pathetique. In contrast the emotion I felt was that of fulfillment and apprehension regarding the next chapter of existence.

When it was first unveiled, I doubt that people came from the world over to stare at Mona Lisa as they do today. Harry could not have spun a better yarn, nor crafted a better legacy for future generations. How lucky some of us have been to see his career flower - what a thrill to watch its last petal set free.

Watch this movie every 10 years.

"YOU'RE NOTHING!" That's Lucky's announcement each time he enters his local diner. It's his way of greeting everyone in the place and in a way it is also sums up this movie. It has some wonderful scenes and wonderful performances but really doesn't add up to very much.

Since legendary actor Harry Dean Stanton passed away I have had this movie's release date circled on my calendar. I would have anyway since I am a fan of his and it was only his second leading role in a 60+ year career. His other, "Paris, Texas" (1984), is one of my favorite movies of all time.

The movie turned out to be his Swan Song and, with so much of his real life experiences incorporated into his character makes it all the more poignant. When the film is over it's difficult to not think that Stanton wasn't saying goodbye to all of us.

That makes this movie worth seeing. He has some terrific scenes with a great cast including director and friend David Lynch, Ron Livingston, James Gavin, Tom Skerritt and Ed Begley Jr. There's a touching scene when Harry/Lucky admits he's concerned about life's end and another at a fiesta where he sings in Spanish (something he's always done beautifully throughout his life).

In spite of this I cannot say the movie as a whole really jelled. In between the banter with his co-stars there was too much... well, NOTHING. That may have been the point when you consider it was Harry Zen's real-life philosophy but I couldn't help but feel a bit empty by the entire viewing experience. There were certain behaviors he exhibited in the town he lived in that I hoped to see fleshed out and it never happened. Places in town he'd observe and are left to guess what he's seeing, never to find out. There were relationships he had with people where I thought some kind of arc would materialize but NOTHING happened. What can I say? I wanted more and got too much of NOTHING! Lol.

Aesthetically, I was bothered by the editing transitions of fading to black/fade in from black of which there are way too many. It became a distraction serving only to contemplate being in a theater with other patrons and taking me away from what was happening on screen.

"Lucky" is really not a bad film. At all. It is a nice cap to Stanton's career. His fans will appreciate his final role and I'm glad to have seen it. I only wish I could say it was a movie I would revisit repeatedly. For me it really isn't.

Rest In Peace Harry Dean. We'll always have Paris... Texas. 😊

Please disregard that review by an IMDb user who claims to "Crave intellectual depth" but is clearly unable to recognize it, and cannot see beyond the superficial.

It proves what Lucky says in the film: "I always thought that the one thing we could agree on is what we were looking at...but that's bullshit, because what I see isn't what you see."

Mr. Stanton's powerful, truth-telling performance is at turns heartbreaking, uplifting, hilarious, and inspiring.

Please do yourself a favor and see this very special film.

A film about nothing much more than just a man nearing the end of his life and searching for meaning and enlightenment, Lucky provides 90 minutes of subtle humor, joy, and melancholy. In his final film role, Harry Dean Stanton gives what felt like an Oscar worthy turn as the titular character who seemingly can't die and is surrounded by people who think they know what's best for him and the world better than he does. Putting a cynical man on a spiritual journey can either be a frustrating or beautiful watch. While there isn't a ton of plot nor dialogue, Lucky is the type of sublime journey that will undeniably make you smile.

7.0/10

Harry Dean Stanton plays an abrasive, borderline misanthropic 90-year-old atheist who must come to terms with his own mortality in this low-key and at times poetic film by first-time director John Carroll Lynch. Through its slow pace and philosophical meanderings, the film has the ability to sweep you out of your stressful, 21st century life and make you experience the habits of a real old-timer: daily morning-exercises, crossword-puzzles and long walks just for the sake of walking. The many characters he meets on his walks around town may come off as plot-devices, but they have a certain charm nonetheless, including David Lynch as a tortoise-loving old man, Beth Grant as the owner of the local bar, and James Darren as her husband. The best scene Stanton shares here, however, is one with Tom Skerritt in which the two reminisce about their time as WWII soldiers.

It's hard not to view the character of Lucky as a dead-ringer for Stanton himself, and that gives the film a meta-weightiness that to fans of Stanton may elevate it an extra notch, seeing as Stanton died just before the film's release. At any rate, Lucky is more than a fitting swansong for the great character actor.

This is not a good movie. Wanting it to be a worthy valedictory for HDS isn't enough to make it so. When Harry is alone, just being or exercising or walking, there is some grace and some weight, but once he's required to interact with the rest of the overly emoting characters or the stilted, trite dialogue, he sadly feels reduced to their level. The direction, dialogue and other actors - with perhaps the exception of Ed Begley's brief scene - all seem amateurish and tone deaf. More than once, the attention turns towards Lucky and everyone in the place stops, turns to him and practically put their arms around each other, hum and sway, while he declaims about this or that. It's embarrassing and not worthy of a high school play, let alone a film that's based in tone and character rather than plot or action. It's like this film took its cues from Paris, Texas, but then dumbed it all down to the point of witless parody. Watch Harry do some yoga, have a couple smokes and give one knowing look near the film's end, but don't expect any poetry or even competence beyond that.

A loving homage to an actor and musician that anyone over 50 has seen in movies over several decades. I wiped away tears several times over beautiful, thoughtful musings by Lucky, who, in most respects, was Harry Dean Stanton himself. This is a small but significant slice of life movie and showcases excellent writing, direction and acting by several collaborators who've worked together before. Notable understated performance by David Lynch whose character's lost tortoise serves as an analogy that some viewers who haven't lived several decades yet will not yet appreciate. I was stilled when Lucky sang, sad when Johnny Cash sang and I smiled, satisfied, at the end. I will watch this movie again with friends who understand the beauty of a simple and well written film like this and we will all feel satisfied and more connected as a result.

2017 saw the passing of both Harry Dean Stanton and Sam Shepard, two-thirds of the creative triumvirate behind the classic 1984 road movie / western PARIS, TEXAS. Wim Wenders and Shephard contrived to give Stanton - a career character actor - one of the greatest roles in twentieth century cinema and he owned every guilt-ridden moment of that film. John Carroll Lynch, in many ways a modern day Stanton, uses his directorial debut to showcase the ninety-year-old Stanton's formidable cussedness and aching vulnerability in a way that is as perfect a bookend to an acting career as GRAN TORINO was to Clint Eastwood.

LUCKY is a deceptively simple tale of a determinedly alone old naval officer, who has got to the stage in life where even his doctor (a fabulous cameo from Ed Begley Jr.) has nothing to tell him when he takes a dizzy tumble. This is an old man, going about things the only way he knows how. His days are a series of little routines sparingly conveyed through repetition and variation in the first half of the film. He knows he is going to die, he knows this scares him, but he also knows there is little else he can do other than persist, like the best of Samuel Beckett's characters.

There is something a little reminiscent of another Wenders' film in LUCKY, namely LIGHTNING OVER WATER. In that part-documentary, Wenders' sought to approach his own fear of death through the imminent mortality of veteran Hollywood filmmaker and close friend Nicholas Ray. Carroll Lynch is similarly engaging with the genuine fears of vulnerabilities of the ageing Stanton, as a means of tapping in to a wider understanding of what death is and what it means.

The film vacillates between profound human empathy and a less appealing, although far less prominent, sentimentality. It is often at its strongest in the barroom scenes in which Lucky goes through the motions of his compromised masculinity and desperately rails against and longs for the reckoning that remains a few miles further down the road. Carroll Lynch keeps the overall tone light and as sunny as the Californian landscape that his film cleaves to, which only makes moments like when Stanton lets rip with a Mariachi band all the more poignant, urgent and arresting. With some great supporting turns from the likes of David Lynch, Tom Skerritt and Ron Livingston, this perfectly formed, smallscale movie, has much bigger concerns at its heart.

This was harry Dean Stanton's last role, made when he was probably 90 in 2016. he died in 2017 at the ripe age of 91.

For me the interest in this movie is Stanton himself, not a lot happens in his sleepy desert town, except the tortoise named President Roosevelt that somehow slipped out of a neighbor's yard.

We see Lucky's daily routine, washing his face, doing a series of yoga exercises, walking into town for his breakfast. At one point he faints and falls, but in the doctor's office he is told everything looks normal. We now know he died a year or so later, it reminds me of the old man in "Groundhog Day", as the nurse says to Phil "People just get old and die."

When you read his biography it seems Stanton was pretty much playing himself, in the movie stating he was from Kentucky and describing his stint in the Navy, as a cook on the USS LST-970, a Landing Ship, Tank, during the Battle of Okinawa. In interviews we see he muses about the same things in this movie, the meaning of life, predestination, and what happens after we die.

I found it on Youtube free streaming movies, with the occasional interruption of a 6-second commercial, overall not bad at all. This is simply a character study, any viewer wanting more may be disappointed.

There aren't enough honest films about growing old, but this is one, and in the nicest way too. It's also a wonderful swansong for Harry Dean Stanton whose last film it was at the age of 91!! A slight tale of an old man playing out his last days in a small U.S. desert community, at first I thought it was too slight, but then it drew me in with humour, honesty, and the touching portrayal at its centre,as well as several other excellent performances, and skillful direction.

Just recently saw an independent film called "Lucky" with the now late character actor Harry Dean Stanton and clearly it was a touching swan song for Harry and for those who viewed it. Stanton is Lucky a living 90 year old man who's probably at the end of the tunnel despite okay health. And you guessed it he's set in his ways especially with the belief that he doesn't want to face death or he's not too set on the believe of a higher power.

Living in the southwest Lucky's days are spent walking, and going to the local bar and diner to drink and he passes his time during the day after getting up working puzzles and watching game shows. Plus he even smokes some weed with a new African American female friend. And the chats and visits with locals and friends help Lucky move along.

Still thru it all this old man is set in his ways he who doesn't want new acceptance or change in which he fears in his small town life it's a long last reflection on life and being who he is. The supporting cast is well rounded here with David Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., Tom Skeritt and others. Overall well done film of one looking at their life and surroundings and coming to terms with time and reflection without change.

Knowing the heartbreaking background first is what makes this movie experience extraordinary.

The movie "Lucky," was officially released September 29, 2017 and was about a man (Harry Dean Stanton) in his 90s just waiting to die, but also scared to death of it. That star's real-life fears would come true before this was officially released. According to his friend, Stanton knew this was his final major performance and he very much was the character in this movie. This was his love-letter, send-off movie addressed to Life.

So, while watching this fictional movie, I kept thinking: How much fiction is this?

It helps I love desert-based, small-town movies and this one was perfect for that setting. You will get to know the entire town - even parts you don't see and practically all of its residents. Lucky lives alone, is in his 90s, does yoga and walks a lot to "stay in shape," and smokes like a chimney. Of course, the joke is "Those Things Will Kill Yah!" and he knows that. He always knows he made it to his 90s.

Along for the ride are thoroughly interesting townsfolk who genuinely care for their neighbor, Lucky. We'll follow his daily routines to the café, convenience store and bar. Not to mention, his shows and crossword puzzles. We'll hear about his life, philosophies and moods in short-spoken sentences. Watching him react and waiting to hear/see his response to any of his friends was such a joy.

But mostly this is heartwarming tale of a man doing his absolute best to stand and face the Grim Reaper he knows is coming. Is he as ready as he says he is?

Though I am not "that old," from my own life experiences, I understood him 100%. I probably shouldn't be thinking as much about this as he did at my age, but that doesn't stop the reality sinking in, more and more, each day.

Honestly, I'd be so lucky to end up like him. Living in a small town, with a group of friends within walking distance, a permanent roof over my head and enough money saved to afford a pack of cigarettes every day, even though I've already quit smoking.

I loved this movie. It's purposely slow-paced, yet never feels that way. Stanton, through brilliant acting, keeps the tension up with how invested we are with him and that makes this flow very nicely. I love how it's shot, the actors all seem real and by the end of the movie, you'll know how it feels to live in an isolated desert town. Highly recommended.

Plus, to top it all off, there's a wonderful reunion that may seem Alien to this movie, but DAMN. It's probably the best scene in the movie. At first, it's a delight to see them together again and as it winds down, you're moved beyond what you thought possible.

***

Final Thoughts: My mother passed away just about 2½ years ago. I was raised to believe in the After Life, but when she passed on...one of my very first thoughts were: Maybe we just fade away into blackness. Nothingness. And then, I had my own near-death experience, as recently as earlier this year when I blacked out due to kidney failure on a Saturday evening and woke up in an ICU that following Friday having zero recollection of that week. Well, I may not have been dead - per the doctors I was 86% dead. When I blacked out, I was alone and my father found me 3 days later and had me taken to the hospital. Had he waited or couldn't find me, surely, I would've have woken up.

Again, probably not technically dead, but I didn't see any "light at the end of the tunnel." It was just nothingness from Saturday Evening till Friday Afternoon. So, I see Lucky's POV.

I wouldn't put Lucky in the comedy genre even if you laugh a couple of times. It's more a sad movie then a joyous one. Sad because it's about an old dude with his daily routines, living by himself, and that will die by himself. The story oozes loneliness. It doesn't want you to become old when watching this movie. Lucky, played beautifully by Harry Dean Stanton, lives alone and does the same things over every single day, but he also have an interesting view on the meaning of life and other things. Those are the things that make the movie worth watching. Just don't expect much action or so because there is just no action at all. It's all about Lucky waking up and doing his daily routine, and about Lucky saying what he thinks about things. My uncle was just like that so those were the reasons I had to laugh sometimes. Lucky was worth a watch.

'LUCKY': Four Stars (Out of Five)

A drama starring Harry Dean Stanton in one of his final on-screen roles, before his death on September 15th, 2017. Stanton plays a 90-year-old atheist dealing with old age. It was directed by veteran actor turned first time director John Carroll Lynch, and it was written by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja (two veteran actors turned first time screenwriters). The movie also features supporting turns from David Lynch, Ron Livingston, Beth Grant, Ed Begley Jr., Barry Shabaka Henley and Tom Skerritt (reuniting him with his 'ALIEN' costar). The film has received almost unanimous rave reviews from critics, with Stanton's performance getting especially high praise. I think it's a well made character study, with a good performance from Stanton, but it's also just a little overrated.

Stanton plays Lucky, a 90-year-old stuck in his ways, including smoking, that spends his time walking around his small town and hanging out with other elderly locals at a dive bar. He faints one day, and has to see a doctor (Begley Jr.) about it. Then he starts worrying about his upcoming death. The whole time he gets into arguments with his friends, and outsiders; like a lawyer (Livingston) setting up a will for his friend's (Lynch) turtle. He also continues to try to light up cigarettes in non smoking establishments.

The movie is slow-paced, but it does have a lot of interesting dialogue. Not a lot happens in it, so it will seem pretty uneventful (and dull) to some viewers, but those that appreciate a good character study should enjoy it. It's also pretty insightful; about dealing with old age and your quickly approaching death. Stanton is really good in the film, and it's great to see him in a lead role finally. It's also sad that he's no longer with us, but it's touching that he got this one last good role to play (about death and old age oddly enough). It's not a great film, but it is an important one I think.

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My heavens the more I read reviews of movies the more I see that they are going the way of politics religion etc. Everything is extreme you're either red or blue you're either black or white and now movies are either Marvel or Junk I just don't buy that nothing any of it this movie was slow in parts but it had to be it was casting a spell I am living with the computer age and with social media and I am an active participant because this is the new age but that does not mean that I do not appreciate good acting or nuance and you find both in this film.

It seems that this movie was made by "Lucky Strike", a tobacco company for those that don't know. The other reviews are made by machines or something like that, they probably hired one of those strange companies. The movie is really really bad, doesn't have an strong argument, it's filmed always in the same place, nothing exciting or intellectually attractive.