Game shows are such a popular TV staple that they have an entire channel dedicated to them. Some shows are so popular that they’ve been running for decades. Over the years contestants have won millions of dollars, and it should be no surprise that some people have found ways to skirt the rules and win. They cheat their way to the jackpot. In 1983 CBS created Press Your Luck, a trivia game show where contestants would win spins by answering questions correctly. Each spin could potentially win them hundreds of dollars, vacations, and more. Landing on a Whammy however would make all their winnings go away. The game captured the imagination of people around the world, including Michael Larson who memorized the screens he saw on TV and attempted to win more money than anyone before him.

To call Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser) a scammer might be putting it mildly. Even during his audition for Press Your Luck he stole someone else’s identity so he could appear before the casting crew.  In his hometown he’s been charged with creating Ponzi schemes and stealing money from his friends and family. Even his wife wants nothing to do with him. He finds a way to better himself though, and move out of the ice cream truck he calls home. He’s discovered a way to win big on his favourite game show, and he’ll stop at nothing to come out as the biggest winner of all time.

The Luckiest Man in America wouldn’t be as good as it is without Paul Walter Hauser. The man perfectly encapsulates a scam artist who doesn’t know when to quit. You know he’s a bad man for giving into his addictions, but Hauser adds depth to him, and make you feel bad for him. Sure he’s creepy, but he’s more than that. He’s trying to get his family back. While you would never want to be friends with him, you do still pity him for who he is. The way the film is laid out is also unique. It tells the entire story over the course of filming the notorious episode of Press Your Luck in 1984. While not everything is historically accurate, enough of it is to make it interesting.

The Luckiest Man In America isn’t the first movie that tells the story of scams in game shows (if you haven’t seen Quiz Show, you really should find it as it’s the best of the best of the genre). But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching. The movie does start to drag somewhere around the hour mark, but thankfully it doesn’t have much more to go by then. The biggest issue with the film though is that it doesn’t seem to have enough of a story to tell. The makers of the film only managed to make this a film by adding a bunch of nonsense into the real story. There have been two documentaries released about the event before, which work a little better. Still, The Luckiest Man In America does have some merits to it that make it fun to watch.