Like a lot of Americans, I was an avid fan of watching game shows like Jeopardy, The Wheel of Fortune, and Let’s Make a Deal.  The one I liked the most was Press Your Luck. It had a vibe that I enjoyed quite a bit. The whammy was such a funny element in a game show, and the money and prizes were pretty straightforward.  Like a lot of things these days,  there is a story behind this popular game show we didn’t know about.

Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser) is an ice-cream truck owner/driver who finagles his way into the submissions office to try and try out for Press Your Luck, his favorite game show. After getting turned down, he eventually gets the producer to give him a chance as a contestant. When he gets on the show, he’s nervous, but finally, he gets comfortable and figures out a way to game the system of the show. This becomes a big controversy within the hierarchy of the group of  producers who run the show and the studio head.

Paul Waltwr Hauser has been doing some interesting things in his career after breaking onto the scene in I Tonya. His performance in Richard Jewell was phenomenal, and his choosing to get involved in Cobra Kai and AEW were not exactly what I was expecting from him. This is more up his alley from my perspective. He genuinely feels like he was meant to play this character. There is a backstory to him that makes his character very sympathetic. The powers that be don’t care though about his redemption arc.

I love it when films are set in a specific period of time. In the case of this movie, it was set in the late 70s. The various things like cars, clothes, and hairstyles are so on par with that era. Even though the film is mostly set based, there are moments that show the aesthetic of the time. Most of the production design was CBS studios and a soundstage and sound booth. The ice cream truck and the clothes on Hausers character seemed right on par for him.

The supporting cast in this movie was very surprising to me because I didn’t expect a couple of the people who showed up to be in this film. First of all was David Straithern as the producer and talent executive behind the guests who appeared on the game show  Press Your Luck. He was pretty stoic at the beginning but became unraveled as the movie progressed. The second is Shamier Anderson, best known for John Wick 4. He was another behind the scenes producer on the game show. He takes the blame for some of the decisions that are made regarding Housers character being allowed on the show, despite the fact he was against him from the start. The third is someone I knew who was in the cast, but I felt may have been miscast, and that was Walton Goggins as Peter Tomarkin, the host of Press Your Luck. I don’t picture him as this man at all, but what are you going to do? He’s here anyway. I’m a big fan of his, even though I thought he wasn’t right for this role. Maisel Williams from Game of Thrones popped up as well, and she was fine, but I would have liked to see more of her.

These types of true stories based on fifteen minutes of fame are like a dime a dozen these days. There are quite a few of them popping up. As a fan of Press Your Luck, I wasn’t quite knowledgeable about this one, so that’s a big surprise to me. I’d rather not know the whole story behind something and be surprised than know everything that happened in said story. The writer Samir Oliveros/Maggie Briggs and director Oliver’s did a nice job of keeping the story close to the vest and letting it unfold for the viewers and myself to watch on my laptop at home. I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the story and arc of the main character.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen