Curtis Hanson, as L.A. Confidential will vouchsafe, is a highly competent film-maker.

But he has bitten off rather more than he can comfortably chew with screenwriter Eric Roth's poker story, in which long stretches of professional poker are played out before us in a manner which only card fiends will readily comprehend. There are, as the popularity of online gaming shows, plenty of those. But it doesn't seem likely that the rest of us will be gripped.

Hanson frames the sessions with a passable if slightly clichéd story. Eric Bana, a decent actor if not quite a real star yet, is aspiring player Huck Cheever, the son of a poker legend (Robert Duvall). Huck is good at the vital business of reading opponents but lets his emotions get the better of him on occasions and never stops when he's winning.

Away from the tables, his life is a mess until he meets young singer Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore). And even then, he steals some money from her, hoping to give it back from his winnings. She's furious, having been warned about him by her sister - but she can't help herself: she's in love.

Meanwhile, Huck and his father have an awkward relationship, possibly because of some imagined slight in Huck's youth but probably because Dad knows exactly what makes his son an inferior player to himself.

With all this as background, the poker games proliferate, and while it is intriguing to see the psychology involved among the players, and to watch a veteran such as Duvall doing his excellent shtick, it's a bit of a strain trying to follow what's happening with the cards.

Eric Roth's screenplay is supersmart but sometimes overbearingly so. Hanson's direction is almost as smooth and totally confident that we'll all be hooked on his subject matter. There's also a cameo from Robert Downey Jr as an amateur psychologist that's amusing if improbable, and a golf match for high stakes that takes us away from the tables for a bit.

But Lucky You would be distinctly better if it were shorter in length and clearer about the rules of the game. Its idea that gamblers carry on much the same in life as they do at the tables is hardly original enough to sustain the whole film.