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By Dan Leone

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THINK OF THE proverbs and proclamations surrounding the concept of luck – the luck of the Irish, lucky in cards but unlucky in love, etc. – and it's easy to imagine some divine pietà armed with horseshoes and shamrocks, dealing out good fortune or adversity like so many aces of spades. But what if luck was a currency, a legal tender that could be traded, trussed, or simply taken away with a single touch? This idea forms the intriguing premise of Intacto, a Spanish thriller in which favorable providence is just another commodity to beg, barter, or steal. Federico (Eusebio Poncela) was one of the gifted few who not only possessed buena fortuna but could also siphon it from others on physical contact. Robbed of the talent by his mentor, the "God of Chance" (Max Von Sydow), Federico is now in search of revenge; as destiny would have it, an airplane crash survivor named Tomas (Leonardo Sbaraglia) may be Federico's ticket back into the good luck gambling underground if a dogged cop (Monica Lopez) doesn't intercept them first. Slicker than your average Hollywood nail-biter, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's debut feature moves with such a Fincher-esque grace that it automatically renders its inevitable Tinseltown remake redundant. Sure, it's full of philosophical musings on downward turns and Darwinian survival, but the film's virtuosic renderings of fate-driven competitions (from which molasses-slathered head an insect will land on to whether a contestant will pull the trigger on a gun's lone empty chamber) are proof positive that style reigns supreme. Thanks to a clever conceit and a sure storytelling hand, however, Intacto's faults are easily overcome by its sheer edge-of-the-seat fun; it may be slight, but every turn of its chic-technique cards seems to keep drawing one giddy royal flush after another. (David Fear)