From Kyle Smith at the Toronto Film Festival I’m about to return from the Toronto Film Festival–this was my first-ever trip to Canada, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit, although I grew up in Massachusetts and often thought of Canada (in the 70s, as a little kid) as a snowy, rural place where I would someday run to escape the draft. In the meantime I wound up visiting about 25 other countries first.

But as time ticks down I see I still have a moment or two to slam another film: “The Lucky Ones,” from writer-director Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) is cheap, ignorant, tone-deaf and condescending, but what’s strangest about it is that it actually thinks it’s pro-soldier even as it portrays Iraq vets home on leave as foolish (Rachel McAdams), desperate (Tim Robbins) and dishonorable (Michael Pena) while playing all three situations for laughs. (After sitting on the shelf for a year in the apparently futile hope that the Iraq situation would get worse, it’s due for release in theaters Sept. 23. It’s so slimy you owe it to yourself to see it–but don’t pay. Wait for it to be on TV.)

The three soldies are returning home for 30 days of leave—they have nothing in common except a flight—when they get stranded at JFK Airport after the 2003 blackout. So they rent a car and drive it to Las Vegas. (Get it? They’re trying their luck. Also, the movie thinks they’re lucky because they’re among the 99 percent of Iraq vets to survive a tour of duty.)

Colee (McAdams), who has been shot in the leg, spouts lines that would have embarrassed Chrissy on “Three’s Company” as she talks about returning a guitar to a friend who got killed saving her life. T.K. (Pena) and Cheever (Robbins) have also been seriously wounded, one in battle and one by accident. A Port-a-Potty fell on Cheever and crushed his spine, a situation the film finds hilarious.

The film winds up concluding that all three are too stupid, unfortunate or desperate to escape their fate, which is to go back to Iraq, where we are meant to assume that they’ll all get killed. It must be deeply disappointing to Burger that the counterinsurgency war is going better than anyone could have imagined in his wildest dreams (as I believe Barack Obama put it). Burger is about to be rewarded with box office grosses that fall short of anything he could have imagined in his most feverish nightmare.