In 1984, Michael Larson appeared on the game show Press Your Luck, where he broke records with a $110,237 payday. Larson didn’t cheat, but rather, he learned the patterns of the game and used them to his advantage. What was supposed to be a half-hour of television ended up turning into two episodes, as the money piled up while Michael’s luck seemed to never run out. While Larson’s story has already been turned into two different documentaries, The Luckiest Man in America is the first fictionalized version of this story, and not only does it certainly feel falsified in many ways (as the opening makes it clear much of this story has been changed, condensed, and altered), it also feels like a story that has been stretched out over too many episodes.

What Is ‘The Luckiest Man in America’ About?
Paul Walter Hauser plays Michael Larson, an ice cream man who drove his ice cream truck from Ohio to California to appear on Press Your Luck, a show he says he watches with his family every day. From the very beginning, we know Michael has no problem doing what it takes to win. When auditioning for the game, he takes the spot of a man who apparently didn’t show up by the name of Travis Dunn. When this lie is discovered, one of the show’s auditioners (Shamier Anderson) asks him to leave, but another (David Strathairn) sees the TV potential in a man willing to go this far and asks him to be on the show the next day.

Michael appears on the show and after a bit of nervousness and a few mistakes, he starts winning Press Your Luck. And he doesn’t stop winning. In fact, he breaks the show’s record for the amount a single person has won and more than doubles that. As Michael keeps adding to his winnings, the show’s host Peter Tomarken (Walton Goggins) and CBS rightfully start wondering what the hell is going on and how they can possibly stop Michael from continuing to press his luck.

Paul Walter Hauser Is Delightful and Deceptive in ‘The Luckiest Man in America’
Image via TIFF

On its own, Michael’s story is compelling enough, especially when we start to learn more about his family life and what may or may not be true about who he is. Michael is a great role for Hauser, as he flips from trying to command the situation to knowing he’s in over his head. Hauser is an easy actor to find empathy for, and he balances that beautifully here. He’s a character we want to win, but also a guy who is clearly not telling us the entire truth about who he is. At one point, after calling his wife (Haley Bennett) the most beautiful woman in the world, he asks out two makeup artists at once for dinner after gaining his confidence in the game. Michael’s an easy character to like, but the further the show goes on, the more it’s obvious that winning this game isn’t the only scam he’s pulling.

The Luckiest Man in America also knows how to build the tension of this situation, as director Samir Oliveros and cinematographer Pablo Lozano get close in on Hauser’s uncertain face, and fill the studio with bright, flashing lights and suffocating neon colors. We feel every new wrinkle that gets discovered in this story and the shifts in where Michael’s tale goes always feels like it’s heading to an uncomfortable breaking point after uncomfortable breaking point. In terms of simply increasing that fear, Oliveros gives this story the anxiety that it needs.

‘The Luckiest Man in America’ Takes Too Many Liberties With Its True Story
But the biggest issues in the film come from those aspects that are clearly falsified for narrative sake. As the team behind the show tries to figure out who Michael really is and what is going on in the show that is in progress, an absurd amount of details come to light via breaking-and-entering, shady phone calls, and testing Michael while he is still playing the game. Co-written by Oliveros and Joyland co-writer Maggie Briggs, this story is solid enough on its own to not have to throw in these extra elements that couldn’t possibly have been known at the time, but it’s also hard to imagine how this story could’ve been stretched to 90 minutes otherwise. We get to know more about who Michael is because of these scenes, but these are also moments that feel false within this setting.

The Luckiest Man in America is also packed with an impressive cast, yet it simply doesn’t know what to do with them. Goggins is good at layering on the cheesy charm as the show’s host, and it is fun to watch Strathairn and Anderson grow more perturbed and frustrated with this show the longer it goes on. But there is so much wasted talent on the screen in roles that don’t give these actors anything to do. Maisie Williams plays a PA who occasionally has to wrangle Michael, but that’s all she’s given, and Mad Men’s James Wolk barely gets any lines as a camera operator.

Maybe most egregious of all is an appearance by Johnny Knoxville, who is given one of the most obviously fake scenes in the entire film, as Michael leaves the Press Your Luck set, and finds himself on the set of a talk show (which never existed), hosted by Knoxville, where he can open up a bit about himself before going back to the game show as if nothing ever happened. It’s an odd choice that only highlights both the strange added scenes that don’t work here, and the cast that deserves better than they’re given.

The Luckiest Man in America has a conundrum on its hands: either it could’ve told this story a bit more directly in regards to what happened, but without likely having enough story to fill 90 minutes; or, it could do what the film does and throws in details that were discovered later and things that were wholeheartedly made up to pad out the film’s runtime. Unfortunately, neither quite works in this format, and the choices made by going with the latter are just a bit too egregious, with eyeroll-worthy scenes that the audience will clearly see through. The Luckiest Man in America is a strong story when it sticks to the facts, and Hauser is undeniably an excellent choice for this role, but the film really presses its luck by taking such huge liberties with the facts.

The Luckiest Man in America had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.