Few mysteries in Hollywood are as big as how Nora Ephron continues to get directing gigs. True, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail are harmless enough (even though they're practically the same film), but with Michael and Mixed Nuts, Lucky Numbers completes the elephant dung trilogy.

In Lucky Numbers, John Travolta plays a weatherman (a job performed far better by Bill Murray in Groundhog Day) who finds himself in debt. Following a major water draught, it seems our hapless hero has no one to turn to. So, with the aid of a strip club owning buddy (played by Tim Roth) and a ditzy Lotto showgirl (played by Lisa Kudrow), Travolta hatches a plan to fix the lottery so he can pay off his debts. The scheme works, but before long the secret is out, and everyone wants a piece of the action.

Lucky Numbers is sort of a dumb chain reaction picture in which everything escalates to a boil and gets worse instead of better. The same could be said for the film itself. I've always said that there's nothing worse than a comedy that isn't funny and Lucky Numbers has very few laughs.

Ephron can be a strong screenwriter (she proved that with When Harry Met Sally) and she even turned in a good performance in Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks, but with Lucky Numbers, she hits rock bottom. This is surprising considering she attracted the likes of Michael Moore (Roger and Me, The Big One), Ed O'Neil (Married With Children), Tim Roth (Rob Roy, Pulp Fiction), Bill Pullman (Independence Day), Michael Rappaport (Copland) and many others. All are wasted, of course, in a completely convoluted and tedious storyline that I felt would never come to an end. This is just one unfunny scenario after another.

Lucky Numbers is one of those films that left me pondering; "How the hell did they greenlight this picture!" It should also be noted that although not quite as bad as Battlefield Earth, Travolta better watch his step or he will be forced to make yet another comeback.