Lucky's Treasure (2017) User Reviews

My Cup Runneth Over With Sentimentality

[lavatch · 5/10 · 20 April 2017]

There was some beautiful scenery and a wholesome farm environment with horses, including the title character of Lucky. The film begins with the premise that Lucky will help lead the wholesome owners of the farm to the hiding place in the woods where a coin worth $500,000 has been hidden.

After establishing this good premise, the film suddenly introduces the line, "Well, it's never too late to find Christ." In turn, this line is followed by the following maxim: "As Christians, we should be living examples of Christ's love." By this time, it should be clear that God will be watching over young Emily, her grandfather, and the work of the devil in the idyllic farm community.

And there is plenty of evil in the form of villains who want the coin for themselves and will apparently stop at nothing to steal it. Perhaps the most fearsome of the villains is Big Bad Lindsey, the "accomplice" to the crime, who is motivated by tearing Emily away from her former beau named Jake.

There was a truckload of sentimentality in the relationship of Emily and her grandfather, who begins as a Scrooge and is brought to his knees in repentance by the end. At one point in the film, Jake offers up the line to Emily, "I come here just to pray." There was a lot of praying in the film, and a bountiful supply of rewards for the faithful.

Looking Up for the treasure

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 24 April 2017]

This Christian based film is highly unlikely to get out from other than church audiences. Where it should stay because in the real world it would get hoots and catcalls.

Michael Ironside is the grouchy old grandfather who has become bitter and reclusive since losing his wife in a horseback riding accident. She was out looking for some treasure with her horse named Lucky when he threw her.

Ironside's son and daughter-in-law decide that their daughter should spend some time with him. So Delaney comes to live with grandpa over the summer.

And she gets caught up in the treasure hunt as do others. The treasure is one or more old gold pieces that an eccentric millionaire buried all over his property. Just one is face valued at $50,000.00. One of them wasn't exactly buried as we learn.

One of the subplots involves the sheriff's kid JT Neal getting involved with Delaney. Both are good Christian kids, but his old girlfriend Lauren Taylor schemes to break them up. Since Neal is such a goody goody in the film what could he possibly have seen in Taylor in the first place. Similarly Taylor is worried about such matters as her computer and her WiFi when she first comes to grandpa's. Her change is abrupt and without explanation.

Lucky's Treasure is not a well constructed story and the acting other than Ironside is not great. This one strictly for Christian audiences and their self contained world.

Filled With Platitudes & Clichés

[larrys3 · 3/10 · 4 April 2017]

This faith based film is filled with way too many platitudes, clichés, and predictable plot elements for my liking.

The plot revolves around the young woman Emily (Delaney) who has decided to live with her grandfather Henry in the countryside and attend her first year of college there. However, Henry (Michael Ironside) is still grieving the loss of his wife, a year before, and has become quite gruff, ornery, and is drinking way too much.

At college, Emily will meet Jake (JT Neal), and they'll be immediate chemistry between the two, but both will have to deal with Jake's jealous and vindictive ex-girlfriend. Also, there's a subplot in the movie which involves a most valuable coin that supposedly is hidden somewhere on Henry's property.

Overall, the film was just too simplistic and platitude driven, and definitely is not my cup of tea.

Christian hegemony

[stephen1957-535-966158 · 1/10 · 4 April 2017]

Evidently "family" is a euphemism for "Christian," as if the Christian religion has a monopoly on family. This movie is very contrived and not worth the $1.62 I paid at Redbox. The acting is really bad and the story is very predictable indicating a lack of imagination on the creator's part. Pure Flix Entertainment (stylized as PURE|FLIX) is an American independent Christian film and television studio, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. They appear to appose the Johnson Amendment and cater predominantly to the home-school population.

Basic and flat plot, cliches abound

[princesskrose · 2/10 · 3 June 2020]

Faith based, but that want what bored my family. It was the plot. The classic teen girl, Emily, goes to live with her grandfather while she attends college. But her grandpa is heartbroken after his wife's death a year before. His wife, however, was apparently nothing more than a plot device. Nobody fondly remembered her for anything more than her research about the buried treasure. Emily is horrified to learn that her grandpa's house has no cell service. Apparently, the girl doesn't have books. Suck it up, girl, I LIVE in a dead phone zone. This is apparently forgotten, though, by the end of the movie. The cute guy in town, Jake, immediately notices her, much to the chagrin of his ex. The ex, Lindsey, is shallow and flat, with no other reason to hate the MC except for the fact that her ex likes her. There's another thing: they don't even know each other and they fall for each other In a cheap romance subplot. In three days, Emily is "heartbroken" when she sees Lindsey kiss Jake again, and in the week since she's been in town and and Jake are already going strong. Dumb and dumber, the two antagonists and treasure hunters, are, again, flat and stupid. The only police officer we see isn't even wearing half of his equipment. I get that it's the officer's choice, but still. He walks straight into possible danger, doesn't bother radioing for an ambulance when grandpa has a heart attack. Overall, i thought it was boring and predictable, only finished it at the behest of the younger family member. Thankfully it was only an hour and a half long.

Excellent Story we enjoyed

[bob977-862-519831 · 10/10 · 10 April 2017]

Excellent story that my wife and I both enjoyed. In a natural and easy way Christian principals and prayer came up but nothing excessive for the non-religious viewer. It had a good story that flowed well. A good romance, chick flick, family film that we enjoyed. Michael Ironside is a very well known actor who has about 77 movie credits over 40+ years. Don't know why others have to be so critical. This was a good story and deserves a lot of more credit than has been given to it.

Probably great for Christians; maybe not so much for non-Christians

[S_Soma · 8/10 · 11 April 2017]

Today, there are movies made for every possible interest and taste. No matter whether your interests are in romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction, horror, conspiracies, gay, coming-of-age, war or dozens of other subjects, people are turning out movies that should be of interest to you.

One of these dozens of theme or subject possibilities are Christian- themed movies.

Personally, I do take a bit of satisfaction in seeing that there are Christian-themed movies out there. Given the fact that there are literally millions of people in the world who are Christian, it's nice to know that somebody is making movies for them; I think it would be unfortunate if they somehow got left out of having the opportunity to go see movies in their area of interest. And I'm also keenly aware of the fact that one of the foundational principles and motivations for the founding of the United States was the notion of religious freedom, and it would be my opinion that if there were some sort of unique stifling of Christian-themed movies in America, that would constitute a definite compromise of that founding principle.

It should be specifically noted that there is nothing sneaky or manipulative about LUCKY'S TREASURE. It most certainly is not any kind of underhanded Trojan horse trying to suck you in under false pretenses only to spring a high-pressure sales pitch for God and Christianity upon you. LUCKY'S TREASURE is an overtly, unsubtle, very upfront Christian-themed movie, and unabashedly so. 6 minutes into the movie, including all of the opening credits, we're already saying grace at the table.

To be honest, I'm not a Christian. In fact I have no spiritual or religious aspect to my personality. I don't refer to myself as an "atheist" because my personal life experience has taught me that genuine atheists are the most appalling, overbearing, egotistical and arrogant people there are, uniformly insisting on foisting their attitudes upon others, LOUDLY. No Christians I have ever personally met have ever been half as insufferable as the most pleasant atheist. But honestly I only watched the movie because it had the word "treasure" in the title and description; I'm a nut case for stories about treasure. I'll probably suck into almost any kind of movie if there's something about treasure in it. It's a weakness.

Given the fact that it's a Christian-themed movie and every movie of this kind that I have ever seen is all about Christianity and primarily about God and the problems and resolutions the characters have in their relationships with God, most of such movies pretty much seem to be the same thing over and over again to me. The gold coin that constitutes the treasure in the picture is simply the MacGuffin that prevents the movie from being identical to all such similarly-themed movies.

In no way do I intend to denigrate LUCKY'S TREASURE. In the same way that revenge movies, as a random example, have their tropes and forms, Christian-themed movies have theirs. Christian-themed movies are specifically this way BECAUSE this is specifically the issues and subject matter that it's devoted audiences want to see; they would be disappointed if a Christian-themed movie WASN'T this way. I also think, as a similar example, that romance movies are the same glop repeated incessantly with each instance and simply change the specific actors who are alternately acting ridiculously or engaging in kissy-face.

For most of us who aren't Christians, I recommend avoiding this movie; it just isn't for you, and it was never intended to be. The treasure coin subplot is simply a pro forma element of this genre and for the rest of us doth not a story make.

For Christians who are into Christian-themed movies, LUCKY'S TREASURE seems to me to be a superb example of the genre and I would predict that you would enjoy it very much. Experimentally, I recommended it to a devout Christian acquaintance of mine and she loved it. And for this reason, as I rate movies based upon how well they hit the target they shot at rather than by some absolute scale, I gave this movie an 8; I have reason to believe it's a very good example of the genre but I am not an expert and this rating was my compromise.

I do notice that some other reviewers, who I suspect to be of the run-of-the-mill atheist variety, are using such phrases as "Christian hegemony" in their reviews, absurdly attacking the film for simply being what it is, even though it is entirely bereft of any deceit or duplicitousness that might justify it. LUCKY'S TREASURE nothing more or less than a simple, Christian-themed movie, as harmless as any movie of any genre CAN be.

I discordially invite such individuals to suck on something unspeakable and inappropriate. It's all you're good for. If you missed the fact that the very cover art of the movie itself referred to itself as being a "faith-friendly movie", that's nobody's problem but yours. While free speech protects your venom, I can assure you that nobody wants to hear your overt intolerance.