Hollywood keeps making adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, even though they've never really burned up the box office. Maybe “The Lucky One” will be, well, the lucky one, but it's hard to imagine why. Sparks films have become their own subclass within the Romance genre; and this one feels so familiar that, in my mind, its details began to blur with those of its predecessors before the closing credits had finished.
Zac Efron plays Logan Thibault, a recently returned Iraq vet, who is determined to track down a beautiful girl (Taylor Schilling), whose photo he found buried in the desert. He doesn't know her name or anything about her, but her image kept him (in his words) “alive,” though, based on some of his actions, not necessarily sane. Now home for good from his third tour of duty, he locates this unwitting guardian angel in a small Louisiana town. Her name is Beth Green, and the photo belonged to her brother, who was killed in action under murky circumstances.
