Good Luck Chuck Review
by Anthony Morris
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Dane Cook is a rising star in the US comedy firmament, and if you squint real hard during Good Luck Chuck
you can see why: he's charming (in a way), he's got a light touch
(compared to most), and his mild-mannered approach makes him the big
screen version of that guy who plays Michael in the US version of The Office.
None
of which takes anything away from the fact that this is the comedy
equivalent of a forced march through swampy terrain, but it does
suggest that Cook shouldn't be completely written off because of this
stinker (or the several other bombs he's lent his name to - namely Employee of the Month and Waiting).
Likewise
Jessica Alba occasionally shows some small comic flair, though this
film's painful attempts to make her into a flailing comedy klutz pretty
much negate all that (and mysteriously, she stops being a klutz right
about the time she starts to want to have sex with our hero).
As
for the story, it's simple: Cook plays Chuck, a man cursed in childhood
(by a high school witch, hot for his pre-pubescent bod) never to know
love, but it's only when he discovers that he's become a good luck
charm for single women (whoever has sex with him finds their true love
in the next guy who comes along) that he realises what he's
missing.
For a while he doesn't care (lots of women want
to have no-strings sex with him, after all) but then he meets Alba,
falls for her, realises that if they do the nasty she'll leave him to
find true love elsewhere, and promptly starts acting like a raving
nutcase.
There's a fair bit of nudity here alongside
plenty of crude jokes about the usual suspects (erections, fat women,
men having sex with fruit, women with three breasts) but everything
here's been done better somewhere else.
Even if you think you're the kind of person who would like this, you really deserve better. 2 out
of 5 Good Luck Chuck
Australian release: 25th October, 2007
Cast: Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler, Lonny Ross
Director: Mark Helfrich
Website: Click
here.
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