Written with Dick Wittenborn, The Illusionist is probably still Burger's best known work*, but this is a subtle and quite un-Hollywoody story of servicemen on leave - a sort of updated Best Years of Our Lives, with a far bleaker ending. It doesn't condone war or the army, just sits there like a frog on a log, and is all the better for it. It's in all the reactions of people they encounter where there is any commentary at all, and the moment where they pass a car containing middle eastern types without a word is tangy.
The trio comprises Tim Robbins, Michael Peña and a rather good Rachel McAdams (again) who plays it convincingly slightly thick.
Shot by Declan Quinn.Music by Rolfe Kent.
* Limitless (2011) is about a pill which gives you 100% of your brain power, with Bradley Cooper and Anna Friel. Divergent (2014) features Shailene Woodley, funnily enough, and Kate Winslet and is another sci-fi imagining, making The Lucky Ones the least typical of this writer's stuff.
Wittenborn made the odd-sounding Fierce People in 2005, with Donald Sutherland, and the rare and tasteless-sounding Mr Mike's Mondo Video in 1979, both of which have been ordered.
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