''Good Luck'' is a 1996

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

film directed by Richard LaBrie starring

Gregory Hines Gregory Oliver Hines (February 14, 1946 – August 9, 2003) was an American dancer, actor, choreographer, and singer. He is one of the most celebrated tap dancers of all time. As an actor, he is best known for '' Wolfen'' (1981), '' The Cotton C ...

and

Vincent D'Onofrio Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (; born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His roles include Private Leonar ...

as two physically disabled men who come together to challenge themselves out of their unsatisfactory lives.

Plot

Hines plays a former dental student, Bern Lemley, who had to quit school just before finals because of a car accident that left him in a wheelchair. D'Onofrio plays a former pro football player, Ole Olezniak, who was blinded in a freak accident on the field. Before their accidents, Bern had been a tutor for Ole, and, after quitting his post-accident job as a denture technician, he approaches Ole about teaming up to enter a

white-water rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

race on Oregon's Rogue River.

Production

The film was shot in

Georgetown, California Georgetown (formerly Growlersburg) is a census-designated place (CDP) in El Dorado County, California. It is the northeasternmost town in the California Mother Lode. The population was 2,367 at the 2010 census, up from 962 in 2000. The town is reg ...

Coos Bay Coos Bay is an estuary where the Coos River enters the Pacific Ocean, the estuary is approximately 12 miles long and up to two miles wide. It is the largest estuary completely within Oregon state lines. The Coos Bay watershed covers an area of abou ...

Winchester Bay Winchester Bay is an unincorporated community in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau has defined Winchester Bay as a census-designated place (CDP). The census definition of the area may ...

, and

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

Release

The movie had its world premiere at the 1996

Seattle Film Festival Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of ...

under the title ''The Ox and the Eye'', presumably because of D'Onofrio's brute strength and Hines's ability to see. It has also been known as ''Guys Like Us'' and ''Gimps'', a term Hines uses in the movie to refer to his and D'Onofrio's characters. It was shown as a sneak preview during the

1996 Summer Paralympics The 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, were held from August 16 to 25. It was the first Paralympic Games, Paralympics to get mass media sponsorship, and had a budget of USD $81 million. It was the first Paralympic Games ...

in Atlanta. It was released in theaters under its present title on March 7, 1997.

Reception

Emanuel Levy of ''

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'' found the film to be "only a notch above the inspirational earnestness of a routine telepic", but praised it for the "strong rapport" between Hines and D'Onofrio. ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' reviewer

Lawrence Van Gelder Lawrence Ralph Van Gelder (February 17, 1933 – March 11, 2016) was an American journalist and instructor in journalism who worked at several different New York City-based newspapers in his long career. Until 2010, he was senior editor of the Ar ...

called it a "sweet, modest clone" of other inspirational movies that surpassed expectations due to its excellent acting. Similarly, John Anderson of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' noted the potentially melodramatic concept, but found it to be elevated by its performances. Leah Rozen of ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' gave the film a positive notice, calling it "a small picture with a huge heart." ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' gave it a "B+" grade and said it was a "quietly quirky movie" that "turns genuinely uplifting".Review of ''Good Luck''
''

'', August 22, 1997.

References

External links

* *{{Rotten Tomatoes, good_luck 1996 films Films shot in Oregon 1990s English-language films