‘The Luckiest Man in America’ Review: Paul Walter Hauser Gives a Winning Game Show Performance

TIFF 2024: Spinning a yarn about a contestant on 1980s competition series “Press Your Luck,” Samir Oliveros’ film can’t quite win it all — and that’s OK

A man with graying hair and a darker beard shows a confident look as he sits on a game show set with a nametag reading "Michael," a red buzzer button in front of him — and a strange looking creature in a drawing on the left.
Paul Walter Hauser in "The Luckiest Man in America." (Image courtesy Toronto International Film Festival)

For a film about a game show surrounding the pushing of a button at just the right moment, it’s fascinating how “The Luckiest Man in America” goes out of its way to never fall into a pattern. Whenever you think you’ve got a read on what it’s going for, the film will dart in another direction and throw out what it’d just been doing moments prior.

Though one could call it a thriller based on a true story about a man who rigged a game show, it also has the heart of a dramedy hidden away somewhere that you occasionally catch flashes of under the brightly colored studio lights.

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