The Lucky One | Filmfare.com

Director: Scott Hicks

Cast: Taylor Schilling, Zac Efron

When you’re making a film based on a famous book, what can make it a perfect watch for an audience are the people who bring it to life -- actors, director and for sure the editor. But unfortunately they are the ones who failed The Lucky One, based on Nicolas Sparks’ romantic drama with the same title.

It’s not a surprise that the charming teen from High School Musical Zac Efron as Logan Thibault was as stiff as a log of wood, even during the love making scenes. And giving him company was Taylor Schilling as the blonde young mother Elizabeth Green aka Beth who lives with her grandmother Ellie (Blythe Danner) and eight year old son Ben (Riley Thomas Stewart). She runs a kennel for a living in the lush green small town. Probably Taylor’s attractive thighs and the picturesque countryside were the only things to look at and admire.

The story was predictable, not just for those who had read the book but also for those who haven’t touched Nicolas Sparks at all, like me. US Marine Logan, on his third tour of duty in Iraq and after surviving the crazy battlefield, he finds a picture of a blonde, which he somehow believes brings good luck to him. What next can you think of? Yeah, you’re right. He goes out of his way to find that girl, walks miles and miles to Louisiana from Colorado. He finds a job at the kennel because he can't tell her why he is there. She soon is swept away by his to-good-to-be-true niceness, and the mother plays the I-told-you-so matchmaker. If there was any time in my life I wanted to use the C word, it was during this film. Cliched. The intimate scenes were to die for -- I wanted to kill someone for suggesting the film. There was a villain too, Beth's grumpy I-am-so-well-connected ex-husband. But in the end he dies a violent death while doing a good dead. Pretty much likely the fate of the film at the box office.

The boring chemistry between Logan and Beth makes the film unbearable. Hicks' direction was stunted, almost like a bad case of hiccups (the pun is strangely coincidental). The only good thing that I managed to take away from the film was the countryside location for my honeymoon.

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