What do you suppose constitutes “enigmatic?” I’ve thought about this a lot. What you really need to be enigmatic, I believe, is to have a film camera on you 24/7, and then try not to do anything. This, apparently, drives the chicks crazy. “Ooohh, what’s he thinking?” “I wonder if he feels sad about something.” “Isn’t it great how hot guys are so much more in tune with their feelings than the plain ones?”
Oh, if only life really did imitate art. If only we could find it in our hearts to understand that a single man walking all the way from Colorado to Louisiana to take an assistant kennel cleaning job isn’t a creep.
Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel I Wrote this to Get Laid, part IV, The Lucky One prompts the question, “what is it to be lucky?” or it might if the film was not a blatant manipulation of puerile emotion. Logan (Zac Efron) is a soldier in the Middle East. Drawn one morning to a glint in the sand, he discovers the wallet-sized photo of Beth (Taylor Schilling). He decides that if he returns to the States in one piece, he has to 
track down the woman in the photo.
I know this is supposed to be romantic, but if this were really the way to get a quality guy to show up, you’d think women would liberally distribute personal glossies to the streets, alleys and bunkers of the world. Divorcee single mom Beth is hesitant when Logan shows up because if she isn’t, well, the movie ends at this juncture. But luckily for the broken youngsters, Blythe Danner is there as resident smarmy busybody to make sure there will be future PG-13 love-making in shower stalls. And, oh yeah, ex-hubby, baby-daddy, local law enforcement, over-privileged son and self-appointment redneck drifter remover Keith (Jay R. Ferguson) is present to make sure all the conflict boxes can be checked on your cliché list. Keith is an awful character and one clearly out-of-place in a romance except that, by comparison, he certainly makes Zac Efron the bayou catch of the day.
Somewhere between Frankie Muniz and Channing Tatum lies Zac Efron. Less hunky than Channing, less weasel-y than Muniz, Zac’s future success lies somewhere in between the pair, too. I’d bet on Efron. I got the general impression here that Zac was coached for minimalism, “just don’t do much – women will see what they want to see in you. Don’t be a hero.” He wasn’t wonderful, but he probably didn’t need to be. The folks who love The Lucky One will love it more for Zacky’s sky-blue eyes than for his inability to appear shell-shocked without making you laugh out loud.
That said – if you’ve lived long enough to be cynical, consider yourself The Lucky One when you give this thing a miss.
Rated PG-13, 101 Minutes
D: Scott Hicks
W: Will Fetters
Genre: Romance novel
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Women who think the perfect man is currently unemployed and walking the earth in search of her.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Real life husbands
When you find a photo of an American girl on the ground in Iraq, it seems about 99.99% likely that she has a boyfriend/husband, and that he may well be wounded or dead. Is it not incredibly creepy then to track down that girl with the intent of falling in love with her? Does the movie address this point at all? Maybe the DVD will have an alternate ending where he brings the photo, then she says, “That belonged to my husband, who was killed by an IED. Now please get the f**k off my porch.”
For the record, the photo was of her brother. See how completely 100% uncreepy that is?