Games people play

Film review: Luck at First Sight

MANILA, Philippines - Director Dan Villegas has made something very engrossing about people perennially attracted to the games of chance and later falling into an unlikely game of love.

The movie brings us to where it is all happening — in the small-time gambling joints to the big-time casinos and on to the horse races.

Whether you are a big-time player or not, the movie is a good introduction. The story is well-written you can actually suspend disbelief and enjoy it as the story unfolds.

The scenes of lucky coincidences are also believable, serving as a good transition from small to big-time gambling.

Luck At First Sight, written by Bela Padilla and Neil Arce, has a highly believable plotline made more interesting by an equally arresting performance of Jericho Rosales (as Joma Labayen) and Bela Padilla (as Diane de la Cruz).

But in the film, Jericho delineates a humane portrait of a compulsive gambler and probably with direk Dan’s magic touch, he delivers with flying colors. Everything about this character is real and Jericho gives it everything he has and as a result, he emerges a good actor with nothing left to chance. In the film, he is the epitome of most victims of the game of chance but with a sudden new outlook after finding his love one.

As for Bela, her good quality is her spontaneity and she has a face that can be radiant in one frame and utterly feminine in another. Partnered with Jericho, the rapport is spontaneous.

The ensemble actors do very well and here we see good comic timing in the role of Cholo Barreto and Kim Molina. They provide the light touch while lead characters try to find a way out of their financial troubles.

But as usual, we see the competent directorial touch of Dan who tells a story straight to the point without subplots that distract. He has a way of bringing the best in an actor and bringing out the irony and humor in the story.

As a good cinematographer himself, he is able to frame every scene with good cinematic context. Neither light nor heavy, the touch of Dan makes every movie he does highly appealing.

Without trying to be preachy, the film imparts a good lesson for everyone engaged in the games of chance.

To be sure, the movie gives us the thrill of winning as well as the helplessness of losing.

In the end, it shows us something about love happening in unexpected places — this time in gambling joints.

Like casino gambling, the film turned out colorful, dramatic and theatrical.

Direk Dan is consistently good and consistently sensitive as he is able to show us a way of life in gambling joints.

As one observer puts it, “The world is like a reverse casino. In a casino, if you gamble long enough, you’re certainly going to lose. But in the real world, where the only thing you’re gambling is, say, your time or your embarrassment, then the more stuff you do, the more you give luck a chance to find you.”

(Luck At First Sight opens today in cinemas nationwide.)