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'The Lucky Ones'

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BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

September 26, 2008

Three American soldiers meet randomly in an airport and end up on a cross-country road trip in "The Lucky Ones," a thoughtful study on the way foreign wars can reverberate here at home. The word "Iraq" is never uttered; civilians speak respectfully of "over there."

The macho T.K. Poole (Michael Peña), scrappy Collee Dunn ( Rachel McAdams) and family man Fred Cheever ( Tim Robbins) are not exactly archetypes, but they do represent different viewpoints: Cheever worries about paying for his son's college, while his younger friends are more concerned with sex and survival. On their journey they meet other minds: insulated liberals, disrespectful rednecks, the devastated family of a dead soldier.

These loosely sketched vignettes mark a change of pace for the director and co-writer, Neil Burger, whose previous film was the tightly scripted mystery-thriller "The Illusionist." His goal here is to put human faces on our soldiers, a laudable but not terribly difficult task. And the movie so carefully avoids voicing an opinion - which is not the same as an agenda - that you may wonder what, exactly, it wants to say.

(R)

PLOT Three U.S. soldiers on leave take a cross-country road-trip.

CAST Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams, Michael Peña

LENGTH 1:53

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE A thoughtful, if slightly underwhelming, take on the personal ramifications of war.