In reply to Chuck.

The screenplay didn’t even name its main character. (End credited as “The Man From the Future”.) It failing to name the evil triangle/pyramid logo company feels like par for that particular course. (I also will grant that the main character not having a name is potentially another factor of bad writing; though we can point to a number of film classics with unnamed main characters, too.)

I guess the rest is differences in feelings about black comedies versus satire. I don’t think it was really trying for satire and I think “shit’s really bad y’all, let’s try to laugh at it for a brief moment” is a valid definition of black comedy.

But I think I disagree that a satire needs to explicitly and textually point fingers at something as the cause to get across the point of the problem, either. Satire was originally meant to be subtle. (That’s why being on the wrong side of a Poe’s Law Singularity.) I think it even relates to the textual finger pointing in Idiocracy can be seen to be subtextually equally wrong.

I don’t think Good Luck was the best movie it could have been, but it was a black comedy that amused me enough to want to rewatch it.

I was reminded the other day of Gore Verbinski’s other most notable black comedy (assuming you don’t count the Pirates of the Caribbean films as such), Mouse Hunt. It’s a somewhat forgettable Live Action Tom & Jerry cartoon with not much to say other than pests can be pests and maybe that Nathan Lane has pretty good comedic timing.

GLHFDD feels very similar. It’s a reminder that Sam Rockwell is great. It’s got a few good laughs. It’ll probably be forgettable/forgotten in barely a couple years. For me, it was fun to see in a theater and it’ll be fun to revisit in home video eventually.