This is YOUR LUCKY DAY

YOUR LUCKY DAY (Blu-ray)

2023 / 90 min

FROM WELL GO USA

Review by Mr. Bonnie😺

Whenever the Powerball jackpot grows too big to ignore, my wife and I will usually grab a couple of tickets, inevitably pondering what we’d do with such an unfathomable amount of money. It’s all in fun and we never “play for investment purposes” (unless I happen to be having a seriously shitty day at work). Still, both of us agree that if we were to actually win, we wouldn’t tell a soul. 

As Your Lucky Day immediately and effectively demonstrates, keeping your sudden good fortune to yourself is a damn good idea. Walking into a convenience store at night, a guy checks his lottery ticket and discovers he just won $156 million. He loudly announces it to everybody else in the store, including down-on-his-luck drug dealer Sterling (Angus Cloud). 

Sterling pulls a gun and demands the ticket, but when beat cop Cody (Sterling Beaumen) comes out of the store restroom, he draws his own gun and accidentally kills the ticket holder. Sterling shoots Cody, then orders everyone else into the back room. At first, he plans to have the camera footage deleted, tie everybody up and make a quick exit with the ticket, at least until he’s told it will be worthless after what just transpired. So he offers to share the winnings with them.

Someone didn't have the courtesy to flush.

Store owner Amir (Mousa Hussein Kraish) agrees, and after some convincing, so does the young, expectant couple, Ana & Abraham (Jessica Garza & Elliot Knight). Together, they come up with a plan to dispose of both bodies and get rid of the lottery winner’s SUV. However, Cody isn’t quite dead. He calls his father, Dick (also a cop), informs them of the situation and pleads for help. Dick and a couple of SWAT buddies gear-up and head over, not just to save Cody, but to grab the winning ticket for themselves. This is where the fun really begins.

Your Lucky Day has a few perfunctory things to say about the current state of America, but where it really excels is how it depicts the lengths seemingly normal people will go for sudden wealth. Writer-director Daniel Brown does a good job presenting his protagonists as fallible, their values and sense of morality compromised by greed. Still, part of us empathizes with them, including Sterling, who sees the ticket as his only escape from a miserable life. The viewer might even find themselves wondering if they’d do the same thing in their situation.

Despite peripheral (sometimes heavy-handed) social commentary offered throughout the narrative, the film is ultimately a tight, gritty little thriller that makes great use of the claustrophobic setting (almost all of it takes place within the store). There’s not a lot of action per se, but the stand-offs and conflicts are intense and sometimes pretty bloody. One thing is certain…if you do happen to be fortunate enough to win the lottery, Your Lucky Day might have you thinking twice about announcing it.