National Lampoon's Pucked DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

I have no idea what would posess anyone involved in this movie to be involved in this movie. Jon Bon Jovi. Estella Warren. David Faustino. Cary Elwes. Nora Dunn. Curtis Armstrong. Are these big huge A-list names? No, certainly not, but they at least have done some decent roles in their careers... well, except for Bon Jovi. Then we have director Arthur Hiller, who was at one time the president of the Directors Guild of America. Somehow they've all managed to find themselves in this ludicrous horrid attempt at a movie.

Jon Bon Jovi plays a guy named Frank Hopper, an ex-lawyer who just one day decides to stop practicing law and follow his heart... and come up with a bunch of quick-rich schemes, all of which fail. He's being essentially supported by his sister (Nora Dunn) who thinks he should just get a job as she keeps bailing him out when his schemes inevitably wash out. Then one day, Frank fills out a survey at a Dick's Sporting Goods store. As a goof, he puts down his income of $1 million. A few weeks later, a pre-approved credit card comes in the mail, right about the same time he gets his latest brainstorm about a women's hockey league. Yeah, you see where this is going? He starts charging things to the first card and, somehow, pays the minimum balances and gets more and more cards, which snowballs up to 208 credit cards. With this cache of cards he gets his league started along with his buddy Carl (David Faustino) and actually gets a solid foundation for this league... before his house of (credit) cards tumbles from fraud. Oh, of course, since he was a lawyer when he was actually working, they cap the whole retarded mess off with a "dramatic" courtroom scene. Gag!

Jon Bon Jovi gives a Razzie-worthy performance here, with such a inane, terrible delivery that I'm shocked he's gotten any film work at all. It didn't help Bon Jovi's cause that he was reading lines from an awful script from four writers who either made their debut with this movie, or wrote a few films not worth mentioning. Some of the other performances aren't nearly as terrible as Bon Jovi's, but with the tremendously inane lines they're reading, their performance comes off much much much worse. David Faustino gives the best performance here as Bon Jovi's buddy Carl, but that distinction is like being voted team MVP on the worst team in the league.

I really wonder what's happened to director Arthur Hiller. He has an Oscar nomination under his belt, a long and successful directing career and was president of the DGA for a spell. Now he's directing pure dreck like this? What's going on Arthur? Gambling problems? Booze? I almost hope it's something as bad as that so that we can see that maybe your hand was forced in directing garbage like this. Maybe it's senility too. Who knows. It's sad though. Very sad.

National Lampoon's Pucked follows in the recent tradition of National Lampoon, meaning their knack for wasting talent when they have it. Cary Elwes, come on. You're a TON better than this, man. If you're one of the few that like this brand movie, have at it. But for the other 99.9999% of us, just put the Bon Jovi movie down and walk away... slowly.

We get two featurettes here. First up is Dirty Old Man, and the title says it all. They have this dirty old man, in a knock-off smoking jacket, interviewing random people from the movie like gaffers, grips PA's and some of the barely-seen hotties on the hockey teams, all of whom do their "interviews" topless. We get several other random shots of breasts in this five-minute little deal, and if you want to see them, they're nice. Very nice. But, I would suggest that you turn the sound off for these five minutes so you don't have to hear the ramblings of this dunce.

Poonanny is the only other deal we get here, and it's a pseudo music video which also has several random shots of topless chicks. Again, this would be best viewed without the sound. Visual is all you really need, but when they're not showing bare breasts, it's pretty boring, even though it's not even four minutes long.

This "movie" is presented in the anamorphic widescreen format, in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format.

Boring. The front has a shot of Bon Jovi with some of the girls, with the shot taken between a girl's legs, with the title card above. The back has a dopey synopsis, a few random pics, a special features thing inside a puck and the billing block and tech specs. Whoopee.

After watching pure retardation like this, I can't help but wonder how desperate these people are. Maybe they all have gambling or booze problems. Maybe they do heroin. Maybe their mom has cancer and they haven't had a hit movie in years. Maybe they're illiterate and thought they were reading the script for Crash 2. Maybe this was a favor movie. I can accept all those thing, I really can, as unlikely as they all are. But I'd feel a lot better about this semi-talented cast and their director if one of those scenarios were the case, instead of them willfully participating in this wannabe-tawdry affair of a flick.