Good Luck (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Good Luck (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Manufacturer: Unapix/Ardustry (Limited availability)
‘Good Luck’ is good stuffI first caught this flick whilst doin’ a little insomnia-ridden late-night channel-surfin’ a few years back. After encountering nothing but infomercials, I was kinda surprised to discover some real programming! I was just about to see what was brewin’ on the next channel up when I saw Vincent D’Onofrio as the blinded and bitter formed NFL superstar Tony ‘Olee’ Olezniak. Aside from his role as the screw-up-come-Section-8 ‘Private Pyle’ from ‘Full Metal Jacket’ and the giant-roach-in-disguise in ‘Men In Black’, I’ve never really taken a look at D’Onofrio’s other thespian efforts, and was curious to see what he could do here. I must admit, he plays a pretty convincing blind man (reminded me of a few sightless folks I befriended many years back). He and Gregory Hines (as ‘Lem’ the easygoing-yet-oft-irritated paraplegic) display some good comedic chemistry in this umpteenth incarnation of the well-worn ‘unlikely-partners-who-start-to-bond-and-actually-like-one-another-at-the-end’ comedy with a bit of the ‘road-trip’ and ‘underdogs-overcoming-adversity’ formats thrown in for variety.
For a movie about ‘gimps’ (as Lem likes to call the handicapped), ‘Good Luck’ is surprisingly light-hearted. The often sophomoric and occasionally scatological humor hewn throughout this production (especially the ‘playing-chicken-with-a-train’ scene and the part where Olee asks Lem to describe a certain… thing) conveys reasonably solid proof that things aren’t being taken too seriously ‘round here. Aside from the funny stuff, ‘Good Luck’ has a little somethin’ for everyone! There’s Joe Theismann’s cameo for all the pro football nuts. There’s the pot-farmer-with-a-heart-of-gold to attract the sodbusters AND the stoners. A brief appearance by James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, is a virtual Star Wars-fan pheromone. The bug-eyed Robert O’Reilly, best known as the Klingon chancellor Gowron on NextGen and DS9, is a sure-fire Trekkie draw. There’s even a chicken-foot-wielding, blackjack-playing small town mayor that’s sure to bring in… um… well, someone-or-other. And I haven’t even gotten to the guy with a clock on his hat yet! I tells ya, this baby is a marketing executive’s dream!
‘Late