Good Luck Chuck film review

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GOOD LUCK CHUCK

The annual awards for worst film, better known as the Razzies, has a prize contender in Good Luck Chuck, a dire American comedy that has landed on our shores before an unsuspecting audience.

This supposed comedy caper concerns the love life of a successful dental surgeon, but the reality is that emergency root canal work would provide more entertainment. Dane Cook, a well-known stand-up in his native US, plays the titular Charlie, who is blessed from a young age by a magical power: women are desperate to sleep with him because once they do the next man they meet will be the man of their dreams.

That is it: the concept of a film that cost millions to be made. Writer Josh Stolberg and debutante director Mark Helfrich seem to find this notion hilarious and spend an inordinate amount of time placing Chuck in bed with the most inappropriate women possible. This is gross-out comedy that makes the Farrelly Brothers seem like masters of the sublime.

There is of course a real love interest with an ending that can be seen from a million miles away as Chuck encounters the seemingly unattainable Cam (Jessica Alba), a penguin keeper - imagine the comic potential here - at the local zoo. The obligatory role of the loser fat friend is another stereotype that is duly ticked.

Audiences expecting a fun night out with be left sorely disappointed and no doubt curse their bad luck for choosing such an inept offering. You have been warned.

Paul Hurley