Pure luck

The daughter of the owner of a large American corporation, Valerie Highsmith went to rest in Mexico and disappeared. Her whole life has been plagued by chronic bad luck. Attempts to find her were unsuccessful. Julius Monosophos, a staff psychologist at the corporation, comes up with an unexpected way. He proposes to send in search of the same inveterate loser - accounting officer Eugene Proctor. According to the theory of the Monosophist, Eugene, like Valerie, will attract the same troubles like a magnet.

Eugene agrees to help and flies to Mexico with private detective Raymond Campanella. They really immediately attack the trail of the missing girl. Raymond, however, is skeptical of what is happening to the very end - he blames the successes of the unsuccessful accountant for pure luck.

The remake is extremely close to the French comedy in the story, differing only in the details. The difference mainly lies in the fact that in the American film, heroes often refer to pure luck as the cause of the chain of accidents that led the wanted list to success.

• Danny Glover - Raymond Campanella
• Martin Short - Eugene Proctor
• Sheila Kelly - Valerie Highsmith
• Sam Wenhamaker - Mr. Highsmith
• Harry Shearer - Monosoff
• Scott Wilson - Frank Grimes

Some of the Mexican actors star in both roles.

• Jorge Luke - pilot of a plane in which Eugene was bitten by a bee (in the French film Arbal, the kidnapper of a girl)
• Rodrigo Puebla - the bandit Fernando, sits at the card table, Raymond takes the money from Eugene back from him (in the French film, he also sits at the card table and his first hit Campana)
• Sergio Calderon - The bartender of the brothel where Eugene filmed a prostitute (in a French film a prisoner in prison)
• Jorge Russek - Inspector Segura (in the French film, one of the bandits at the card table)

The film “Pure Luck” is the last among a series of Hollywood remakes of French paintings in a kind of trilogy directed by Francis Weber , after the films “Toy” (1982) and “A Man in One Red Boot” (1985). All of them were rather coolly received by critics and did not have significant box office success (about $ 20 million at home rentals for “Pure Luck”) ^[1] .

The critics called the main problem of the film the congestion with stamps and the sagging plot, when nothing interesting happens on the screen for a long time. The gags in the film themselves are fresh and funny, but predictable for the viewer. When the characters slow down near the abyss, the jeep will certainly hang and will balance on the edge, as was the case in hundreds of other paintings ^[2] .

With all the other flaws, New York Times critic Karin James noted that the picture is partially saved by a good acting. The Washington Post columnist even wrote that Martin Short wasted his comedic talent and that without him the film could not have been watched to the end ^{[1] [3]} .

• " Pure Luck ” on the Internet Movie Database