GOOD LUCK CHUCK [R]
A mainstream comedy is not supposed to leave the viewer with the kind of icky type of I-need-a-cleansing-shower vibe, like after watching a double feature of Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness. However, that’s exactly what happens with Brett Ratner’s longtime editor Mark Helfrich’s shticky mess starring Dane Cook as Charlie, a dentist whom area women consider a sexual lucky charm (note to writer Josh Stolberg: sexualized pre-teens + near-rape = not funny). Helfrich only hints at the self-effacing charisma that college stand-up hero Cook has, miring it in unnecessary courseness and violent slapstick. Most of the gross-outs come courtesy of Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury), Charlie’s dumpy best friend, Stu. Considering that Fogler has a Tony at home (for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), this kind of lowbrow pandering is way below him. Really, was sex with food – in this case, microwaved grapefruit (!) – even funny when Jason Biggs humped pastry in American Pie? Fantastic Four cutie Jessica Alba’s charms are wasted, too, as her hopelessly klutzy penguin wrangler/object of Charlie’s affection is always falling down, walking into light poles or, to the delight of the teenage boys who snuck in due to the prohibitive R rating, losing her dress in a car door and exposing her penguin-adorned underpants. Her relationship with Cook is barely believable to start, but when the Employee of the Month star launches into full-scale psychotic stalker mode to win the affections of the bubbly, doe-eyed waif, we believe it even less while losing what sympathy we might have had for him. To quote a famous advertising catchphrase, “Sorry Charlie, only the best-tasting tuna gets to be Star-Kist!” (and we’d rather not know the real reason this sandwich tastes so foul). –Robert Newton