{"id":14594,"date":"2026-06-24T16:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=14594"},"modified":"2026-06-24T16:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:25:12","slug":"lucky-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/06\/24\/lucky-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lucky Strike<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadside Attractions\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, some grisly images, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Lurie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark Frydman and Rod Lurie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Larry Groupe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Lorenzo Senatore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 26, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Eastwood, Colin Hanks, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Taylor John Smith, Lorne MacFadyen, Patrick Millin, Daniel Ray Rodriguez, Timothy Blore, Alexandra Vale, Atanas Srebrev, Isabella Rose, Jonathan Yunger, Caroline Piette, Scott Alda Coffey, Jake Lowe, Alfie Stewart, Reomy D Mpeho, Laurent Maurel, Hazel Rogers.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I get that Rod Lurie (The Last Castle) is going for a Saving Private Ryan-level film with his WWII drama Lucky Strike<\/strong>, but to me it feels more like a WWII-themed B-movie from the 70s (e.g. The Inglorious Bastards, Force 10 from Navarone). Despite a narrative framing device clearly designed to add gravitas to the proceedings, it lacks the strong emotional core of Steven Spielberg\u2019s masterpiece. What\u2019s left is a decent war actioner that plays out like a much less OTT version of Sisu.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Scott Eastwood (The Fate of the Furious) plays John Castle, an American soldier trapped behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge circa 1944. He finds himself alone after his unit is wiped out by the Nazi Panzer Army. Armed only with a Motorola SCR-300 radio named \u201cLassie\u201d, he must travel almost 30 kilometers through hostile territory to the extraction point. He kills a lot of Nazis along the way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now let\u2019s talk about the frame. When we first meet Castle, he\u2019s calling on a woman (Taylor, Origin) whose son died during the war. She\u2019s reluctant to talk to him. There\u2019s a pending lawsuit of some kind. He decides to tell her his story. Now here\u2019s the thing. We come to learn she plays a bigger role in the story than we\u2019re initially led to believe. This is supposed to be the emotional aspect of Lucky Strike<\/strong>. It doesn\u2019t work. If anything, it\u2019s more of a reach.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And now to answer a burning question I\u2019m sure many of you have. What\u2019s the meaning of the title Lucky Strike<\/strong>? It\u2019s a brand of cigarettes, yes, but what has it to do with the movie? That\u2019s interesting actually. So apparently it was a thing in the war to burn the brand logo on a cigarette when you smoke it. Why, you ask? It was for security. When the enemy finds the butts, they won\u2019t know it\u2019s an American brand and therefore can\u2019t tell who was in the area. I didn\u2019t know this. And who says movies aren\u2019t educational? In any event, it plays a pivotal role down the line.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The audience at last night\u2019s AMC Screen Unseen didn\u2019t seem to care for Lucky Strike<\/strong>. Reactions ranged from lukewarm to negative for the most part. I\u2019ll grant that it\u2019s not a cinematic masterwork. It\u2019s cheap-looking despite its $20M budget. The dialogue isn\u2019t especially well written. The acting isn\u2019t particularly good either. It\u2019s derivative of other war-themed movies like Saving Private Ryan, Inglorious Basterds, Sisu and Behind Enemy Lines. It seems to want to be a great importance, but it\u2019s really not. Like I said, it has no emotional impact whatsoever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now maybe I ought to clarify something. The opening titles inform us Lucky Strike<\/strong> is \u201cinspired by true events\u201d. It doesn\u2019t tell the story of an individual. The screenplay by Lurie and Mark Frydman is based on the accounts of several soldiers who were trapped behind enemy lines in WWII. So basically, what you\u2019re seeing might be true in part, but it\u2019s largely fictionalized. Now you know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Scott Eastwood definitely looks like his dad Clint. So much that I keep imagining him starring in a Dirty Harry reboot (as Harry Callahan Jr.) that I hope never happens. As an actor, he\u2019s okay. He\u2019s fairly wooden in Lucky Strike<\/strong> which isn\u2019t as bad as it sounds. The same can be said of lots of action stars. Even Clint struggled to break out of his trademark roles (DH and The Man with No Name). He eventually did. I think Scott will do the same. Speaking of celebrity sons, Colin Hanks (Nobody 2) co-stars as an Army officer who shows up for one scene. He offers Castle a few words of encouragement before making his exit. He too is looking more like his famous dad Tom as he gets older. He\u2019s fine in his one scene. Taylor is similarly good in the film\u2019s bookend scenes even if her character doesn\u2019t have the intended effect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now for a few positive words about Lucky Strike<\/strong>. It kept me entertained. I got pretty invested in Castle\u2019s story as he fights his way through Nazis with few resources and no grasp of the local language (it\u2019s set in Belgium). There\u2019s a bit at the end where he encounters a fellow American soldier who may or may not be who he claims. I\u2019ll just saw I saw it coming right away. It\u2019s fine because Lucky Strike<\/strong> is still a reasonably gripping tale of survival in enemy territory. Also, I love B-movies and that\u2019s definitely what this is.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lucky Strike (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadside Attractions\/Action-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, some grisly images, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Lurie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mark Frydman and Rod Lurie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Larry Groupe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Lorenzo Senatore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 26, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Scott Eastwood, Colin Hanks, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Taylor John Smith, Lorne MacFadyen, Patrick Millin, Daniel Ray Rodriguez, Timothy Blore, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-now-playing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Lucky-Strike-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14661,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14594\/revisions\/14661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}