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Good Luck Chuck

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Good Luck Chuck
Theatrical release poster, a take on a very famous "Rolling Stone" magazine cover of Yoko Ono and John Lennon (in which John was completely naked).
Directed byMark Helfrich
Written byJosh Stolberg
Produced byMike Karz
StarringDane Cook
Jessica Alba
Dan Fogler
CinematographyAnthony B. Richmond
Edited byJulia Wong
Music byAaron Zigman
Distributed byLionsgate
Release dates
September 21, 2007
Running time
96 min.
CountriesUnited States}
Canada
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million
Box office$53,821,887

Good Luck Chuck is a 2007 comedy film starring Jessica Alba and Dane Cook. The premise of the movie is Chuck is a "good luck charm" lover. That is, women will find their "one true love" after sleeping with him. He then meets a girl who he thinks is his true love.

The movie began filming in June 2006 in Vancouver and Edmonton, with some scenes shot in Los Angeles.

Plot

The movie begins in 1985 in a flashback scene where Chuck (Connor Price) entered a closet with a goth girl named Anisha (Sasha Pieterse) but refused to have any sexual contact with her while playing seven minutes in heaven at a friend's boy/girl party, she placed a curse (hex) on him: every single woman he sleeps with will break up with him and marry the next man she meets.

Twenty-two years later, Chuck (Dane Cook), now in his thirties, and running a dentist practice in the same building as his best friend Stu (Dan Fogler) a plastic surgeon. Chuck finds himself unable to tell girls he loves them. This leads to an eventual breakup, but soon leads to his ex-girlfriend getting married. At one such wedding, Chuck becomes enamored of Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba), a sometimes clumsy girl who nevertheless appears quite friendly. Chuck tries to ask Cam out on a date, but she gently refuses him.

While working at her penguin habitat, Cam accidentally slips and breaks her tooth. As Chuck is a dentist, he fixes it without asking to be paid, as he was trying to ask her for a date (later in the film, Cam says that the penguins that she takes care of are Gentoo penguins). Having Chuck's card in hand, she calls him and he agrees to work on her tooth. After the dental treatment, he asks her to go out with him instead of paying him. During the time that Chuck still has eyes for Cam, Stu starts to become convinced that there's something about Chuck's pattern of girls getting married as soon as he has sex with them. This is only compounded when an article on a dating site tells of Chuck's prowess. Stu eventually convinces Chuck to embrace the now many women who visit his practice, arguing that there's nothing better than having a bunch of guilt-free sex. However, after having sex with a bunch of women, Chuck wants to stop and have a serious relationship with Cam. He goes to Cam's workplace to try and ask her out again. She's reluctant to go out with him, but she eventually agrees. They soon develop a strong relationship with each other, that is until Cam tries to have sex with him, by which time he is informed by Stu that each of the women Chuck slept with has gotten married. Worried that the same thing will happen to Cam, he leaves her.

Worried that the curse is real, Chuck maintains a relationship with Cam via frequent phone conversations. Stu reluctantly convinces Chuck to date and sleep with an extremely overweight and ugly woman to see if she'll get married afterwards. Chuck tries to get Stu to date the woman after the deed to see if they get married, hoping that the curse will prove to be false. However, Stu chickens out and only pretends to ask the woman out, who ends up going out with another man. This proves to be a problem when he eventually gives in to Cam's advances and has sex with her. Chuck is now convinced that Cam wants to go out with the author of a book about penguins, who Cam has raved about. Chuck attempts to track down the girl who placed the curse on him when they were kids. Now a happily married woman with a child, the former goth girl tells Chuck that the curse wasn't meant to be real. Still convinced that Cam will date and eventually marry the book author, Chuck tries desperately to get Cam's attention and ask her to marry him. His attempts, though, cause Cam to become convinced he's stalking her and she breaks up with him.

Now deciding to let fate take its course, Chuck puts Cam in touch with the book author, and the two seem to connect instantly (notably, the book author at times appears to be as clumsy as Cam). Stu visits Chuck and convinces him to chase after Cam, who is now headed to Antarctica with the book author. After buying $17,000 worth of tickets (since he wasn't sure which flight Cam might have been on), Chuck confronts Cam. Cam reveals that the book author is already married to someone else, and that she's only going for a week - not the 6 months Chuck thought. Chuck hands Cam a ring box, and Cam opens it to reveal a pebble, a reference to the penguin mating ritual in which a male penguin finds a stone and brings it to the female penguin he wants to be with. Cam calls out for Chuck, who left the plane, and Chuck runs back to Cam, the curse having finally been broken (the adult woman who placed the curse on Chuck in the first place (Anisha) is shown to pull out a voodoo doll she placed a pin through the heart of, and pulls the pin out). A year later they are both in Antarctica together surrounded by penguins, Chuck and Cam kiss, but their tongues get frozen together while they laugh at each other.

Cast

References to other films

Chuck (Dane Cook) can be seen wearing a "Super Club" Baseball cap while playing Frisbee in the park. "Super Club" was the fictional wholesale store that Dane Cook worked for in a previous movie, Employee of the Month.

Critical reception

The film received very negative reviews from critics. As of October 23, 2007 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, only 3% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 96 reviews.[1] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 19 out of 100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "extreme dislike or disgust."[2]

Roger Ebert gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, saying it was "potty-mouthed and brain-damaged" and "There is a scene in this movie where a penguin bites Dane Cook in the crotch. I'd like to find that penguin and buy it a drink." [3] [4]

Mark Kermode also threw barbs of a similar nature on his Friday afternoon film review spot on Radio 5 Live with Simon Mayo, condemning the film as a 'grisly, horrible, barfsome American comedy...with this really grotesquely loathsome guy', and naming it as his worst film of the year for 2007.

Box office performance

The film was the #2 movie at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend, grossing $13.6 million in 2,612 theaters.[5][6]

On its opening weekend at the UK Box Office despite a hefty panning from critics, the picture managed to take the #1 spot.

Pop culture references

Three's Company (1977) - Character mentions this show by name

References

  1. ^ "Good Luck Chuck - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
  2. ^ "Good Luck Chuck (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-09-23.
  3. ^ :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Good Luck Chuck (xhtml)
  4. ^ Snarky Snippets From 2007 Movie Reviews
  5. ^ "Good Luck Chuck (2007) - Weekend Box Office". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
  6. ^ "'Resident Evil' proves zombies rule box office". Associated Press via MSNBC. 2007-09-23. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
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