Good Luck Chuck (2007)
Directed by Mark Helfrich
Written by Josh Stolberg
Starring Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler
Release Date September 21st, 2007
Published September 20th, 2007
The appeal of comedian Dane Cook has eluded me. I have nothing against the wildly popular comic, I just don't see what's so funny. His stand up repertoire seems to consist of wild, Jim Carrey like gesticulations used to sell underwhelming, punchless punchlines. His physicality is entertaining insofar as mimes trapped in that glass box are entertaining; but for my money, his act isn't all that funny. That's not even considering accusations that the unfunny jokes he tells are stolen from other comics.
As for Cook's movie career, thus far, it's not quite as funny as his stand up career. His debut, in a starring role, in last fall's Employee Of The Month, was a bland, forgettable romantic comedy with the acting challenged Cook playing off the even more challenged Jessica Simpson. Now, for Cook's latest starring effort, after he tanked in a dramatic role opposite Kevin Costner in Mr. Brooks this past summer, Cook upgrades his romantic partner and still delivers a bland and forgettable effort. Starring opposite the endlessly appealing Jessica Alba, the appeal of Dane Cook continues to baffle the mind in Good Luck Chuck.
Charlie (Dane Cook) has never had trouble meeting women. Staying in a relationship however, has been mission impossible. The odd thing about the end of Charlie's relationships? His ex's always seem to marry the next guy they meet. It happens every time and women are beginning to take notice. A posting on the internet about Charlie the good luck charm turns the serially single Charlie into the most sought after stud in his area code.
Is this newfound appeal a blessing or a curse? Charlie's lecherous pal Stu (Dan Fogler) thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Charlie however, finds it to be a burden, especially when he meets Cam (Jessica Alba) who proves to be the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, if the curse is real and he sleeps with her he could lose her forever; should she meet someone else.
That is a clean description of a plot that is in reality quite ugly and at times even mean spirited. Mark Helfrich, in his directorial debut, attempts to pull off what Judd Apatow and his creative team did with The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. What is lacking is just about everything that made those two films so ingenious, daring and lovable.
Both Virgin and Knocked Up featured outlandish low humor that some might find off putting. Each film overcame that obstacle by giving the characters equal amounts of heart and humor to offset the raunch. Good Luck Chuck is mostly heartless with only one character we really give a damn about, Alba's Cam is an oasis in a desert of bad. Charlie, or Chuck from the title, isn't exactly detestable but there is very little appealing about him as he launches into a series of heartless sexual escapades to prove or disprove his curse.
The attempt to justify Chuck/Charlie's behavior by giving it the noble purpose of helping lonely girls take advantage of the curse to then meet their true love fails due to the film's vanity. All but two of Charlie's partners are models whose appearance in the film are not meant to propel this plot. Rather, they are used for the prurient purpose of having them get naked and keep the guys in the audience from nodding off.
The two other women, the ones who don't generally meet societal standards of beauty, are used as comic fodder in mean-spirited jokes at their expense. Only a movie as heartless as Good Luck Chuck could think that mocking these poor desperate characters could be a source of humor. An attempt to keep one of the encounters from being completely heartless and mean fails miserably and comes off not only mean but fake and insulting of both the character in question and those of us in the audience.
Dan Fogler is a Tony Award winning actor. I mention this because it kind of blows my mind. How can an actor be so successful in one medium and so remarkably unappealing and unfunny in a different medium. On stage, Fogler is a comic dynamo beloved by audiences. In movies, Fogler is an embarrassment, a remarkably unfunny presence. In his first starring role, the ping pong comedy, Balls of Fury, Fogler was utterly repellent. In good Luck Chuck, in a smaller, supporting role, he manages to somehow be even less appealing.
As Stu, Charlie's misogynist best friend, Fogler is a breast obsessed plastic surgeon whose hobbies include masturbating into a grapefruit and worshiping the breast implants of Pamela Anderson which he purchased on Ebay. Why anyone thought this character was funny is beyond me. Jonah Hill portrayed a raunchy over the top character in Knocked Up but Hill did it with a charming and vulnerable quality that revealed how that character used vulgarity as a cover for insecurity. There is zero nuance in Fogler's performance in Good Luck Chuck, he's just a creep.
Even as I was drifting out of Good Luck Chuck, when I wasn't actively being repulsed by it, I did see some moments where this story or this plot might have worked. Cut back on the prurience, strengthen the characters, and give more time to Jessica Alba's Cam, the only truly likable character in the film, and maybe you could rescue this movie from the garbage. That ship has sailed however and what we are left with is a mess of ugly misogyny, disturbing fetishes, and a lame and completely unbelievable romance.
Good Luck Chuck makes Adam Sandler's style of humor look good by comparison.
