John Tucker Must Die
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| John Tucker Must Die | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Betty Thomas |
| Produced by | Michael Birnbaum |
| Written by | Jeff Lowell |
| Starring | Jesse Metcalfe Brittany Snow Ashanti Sophia Bush Arielle Kebbel |
| Music by | Richard Gibbs |
| Cinematography | Anthony B. Richmond |
| Editing by | Matt Friedman |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | July 28, 2006 |
| Running time | 87 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18 million |
| Gross revenue | $68,821,702 |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
John Tucker Must Die is a 2006 American high school comedy film about a trio of girls (played by Ashanti, Sophia Bush, and Arielle Kebbel) who plot to break the heart of manipulative basketball star John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) after they learn he has been secretly dating all three and pledging each is "the one". They recruit cute wallflower Kate (Brittany Snow) in their scheme to publicly humiliate the cad. The movie was released in North America on July 28, 2006. It was directed by Betty Thomas.
The movie debuted at #3 at the box office with 14.7 million dollars made in the opening week.[citation needed] After three weeks the movie placed #9 at the Box Office and made $40,000,000. Most of the filming was done at the Heritage Woods Secondary School in Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada during the summer of 2005, and set in Seattle, The movie is the first major film to host its official homepage on MySpace; the film's production studio, 20th Century Fox, is a subsidiary of News Corporation, which also owns MySpace. The DVD was released on November 14, 2006.
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[edit] Plot
The movie begins with Kate (Brittany Snow) relating various details of her life up to the point when the film takes place. Her mother Lori (Jenny McCarthy) has moved towns multiple times after bad relationships with random men (Kate no longer bothers to remember their names, and refers to them all as 'Skip', supposedly in relation to the way they 'skip' the relationship). This is beneficial to her and to the film as she gains an understanding of the workings of immoral men. She describes herself as always being "invisible."
While working as a waitress, she sees local hottie John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) on dates with three different girls. The first date for the evening is with Carrie (Arielle Kebbel), a chronic overachiever who spends her life in extracurricular clubs and working on her college application. His second date is with Heather (Ashanti), who is a sassy, aggressive head cheerleader. John's final date for the evening is Beth (Sophia Bush) a vegan activist who is rumored to be a slut (Kate overhears Beth telling John "For you, I don't have to give up all meat..."). Kate learns from a co-worker -- who had obviously dated John herself judging by her near-tearful reaction -- that John dates girls from different cliques at his school so that they never interact and convinces the girls who he dates to keep their relationships secret by telling them that his father does not allow him to date during basketball season.
One day the gym classes are combined because one of the girls' coaches ended up in the hospital with "acute angina", and Kate, Carrie, Heather, and Beth all end up on the same team for a volleyball game. Carrie whispers to a friend that the reason she did not call her was because she was on a date with John Tucker. Heather hears this and smacks her with the volleyball when she serves and pretends it was an accident, but she soon does it again. Carrie becomes angry and they start to fight. Beth tries to stop them, telling them no man is worth fighting over, when Heather says "John Tucker is mine" which Beth hears and becomes angry; they all begin to fight, and Kate ends up stuck in the middle. when Kate, Beth, Carrie, Heather, and the gym teacher are all knocked down on the floor Kate blows the coach's whistle that she happens to be in close distance to. After she has everyone's attention she yells "this guy is cheating on all of you and instead of taking it out on him you're beating the shit out of each other?" Along with Kate, who gets detention for inappropriate language, they receive detention for the resulting fight and she assists them in plotting retaliation against John Tucker. In the meantime Kate becomes friends with John's brother Scott (Penn Badgley) better known as "The Other Tucker".
Despite the girls' strengths, their initial attempts to undo John are eventually utilized by him and he remains as popular as ever. The first attempt was by Beth who has him model photos only for him to find out in a public way that it was for a public service message about genital herpes. In the end he ends up with a Teen Responsibility Award for making people aware of the problem even though he doesn't suffer from one. The second attempt is for Heather to put estrogen in his medicine to make him "less manly". It works as John has a very nearly emotional tearful breakdown on the basketball court only to backfire as girls invite him to their peer feminine counseling groups, offered shoulders to cry on, and even told that "a real man knows how to feel". Finally after he breaks up with Carrie, Heather and Beth -- because they weren't complex enough -- they agree that breaking his heart is the ideal revenge and enlist Kate to aid them. Kate joins the cheerleading team in order to get John's attention. He sees her after the practice, then compliments her. Kate meets up with the troupe and tells them of John's compliment.
Kate's hesitation causes suspicion and after a round of questions, Kate reveals that she never dated anybody before. Kate freaks out but the other girls say that she has three friends who know how he functions. Attracted to Kate, John sends a flower gram to Kate and shouts his phone number over the loudspeaker. When Kate and John meet later he asks why she didn't call him, to which Kate replies, "I didn't have a pen." John later asks his younger brother Scott (Penn Badgley) about Kate, who happens to be her chemistry partner. Scott, with his crush on Kate, replies only about Kate's music tastes and says she might not be the type of girl for him. John replies, "Dude. 'Girl' is my type!" During the next game, John walks over to Kate during the last minute of the last quarter and promises to not shoot the ball if Kate doesn't go out with him. Kate accepts, then John shoots the ball, thus winning the game.
John and Kate meet that Friday at a campfire. After the date, John offers to drive Kate home. Kate, afraid that John is going to kiss her, talks into a spy camera in her bra and calls for the girls' help. Beth walks into the car and teaches Kate how to kiss, though they are disturbed by a pervert outside the car. They see John heading toward the car. Beth, now trapped inside of his car, hides in the back seat. The Land Rover drives to Kate's house and the two walk outside. Then John says if he walks Kate to his door, he might be too tempted to kiss her, and that he doesn't want to risk the relationship moving too fast. Kate says that she always likes a little risk and they kiss anyway. Beth escapes while the two are distracted, but her skirt rips off in the process: "It wasn't even my date and he got me out of my skirt."
Kate goes into her house and her mother tells her she's not comfortable with the plot and she is afraid Kate might forget who she is. Kate says she was nobody before John, so there is nothing to lose. Kate and John's second date turns out to be a surprise for Kate, limiting the supply of spy gadgets Carrie can invent for the date. Kate and John go into a restaurant, yet the date turns out to be a sailboat ride, leaving the other girls envious. The camera starts to lose signal, so the girls rent a boat and start heading toward the ship. The motorboat's engine fails and the girls get stuck. Beth tries to call AAA, but does not get a signal.
A few days later, the team leaves for an away game. In the hotel, Kate calls John through webcam and dares John to put on a thong and then scale a building to Kate's room, supposedly three doors to the left. John doubts it at first, but when Kate reveals that she is only in her underwear, curiosity gets the best of him. He scales the building, enters the room, and lies on the bed. Instead of Kate, Coach Williams exits the bathroom and pulls John by the ear out of the room, embarrassing him. Kate apologizes, saying it was actually four doors.
The next day, John, even though embarrassed, (one girl walks up to John, shows him her cell phone, and says to him, "Your butt is my screen saver!"), turns thongs into a fashion statement for guys, saying they give him enough "bounce" when playing basketball. Later, John asks Kate if she will be his girlfriend, then gives her his watch. Scott finds out that it's all a plot, then asks Kate if she really hates John Tucker.
Later, at John's birthday party, Kate steps on stage and Heather, Beth, and Carrie reveal the entire plot. Kate explains everything and John, instead of being heartbroken, admits that lying to girls is wrong, but also accepts the support of his friends saying there is not anything wrong with hooking up with "the finest girls in school." A cake fight erupts between Kate and John, and soon the entire party.
The next scene shows Kate and John talking what seems to be a few days after the party. John says he learned from his mistakes and will now tell the truth. It shows John telling his new girlfriend about his other girlfriend. Scott, happy that Kate admitted the plot, accepts to be her lab partner again, coming up with a cheesy excuse that he cut his partner's finger off. It is hinted the two will begin dating, and Kate is now friends with Beth, Carrie, and Heather. After a narration by Kate, the movie cuts to credits.
[edit] Post-credits scenes
After the cast list in the credits, there 'is a scene in Tokyo, Japan where three girls are out by a fountain looking at their cell phones and laughing: the picture on the cell phone screen is revealed to be the same picture of John Tucker in a thong earlier in the movie. One of the girls say "Holy Jama-Lama!"
A little bit into the credits, the movie shows the girls walking past a staircase, a teacher is walking down and drops a whole pile of papers and the papers spread all over the staircase. A group of male teachers come by and they bend down to help. When they bend down, you see that they are wearing different patterned thongs.
[edit] Deleted Scenes
- In one scene which takes place after John's estrogen-induced breakdown and his new-found popularity with complex girls, Scott goes to see how his brother is doing and John replies that it is great and "emotion is in".
To underscore the point his best friend and team mascot Tommy walks by and tells this girl that he cried like a baby while dissecting a frog in biology class, at which the girls shows compassions and puts her hand on his chest. Tommy gives John the "thumbs up". John says that now he has to make room for all the new action. - In another scene which takes place the morning after the boat ride and the girls being stranded all night due to the mishap with the boat motor, the shivering girls are walking up the docks after being brought in by a fishing trawler. What the captain tells his friends is unknown since they are speaking in Chinese.
[edit] Cast
- John Tucker
Jesse Metcalfe - Kate
Brittany Snow - Scott Tucker
Penn Badgley - Beth
Sophia Bush - Heather
Ashanti - Carrie
Arielle Kebbel - Lori
Jenny McCarthy - Tommy
Fatso-Fasano - Basketball Coach
Kevin McNulty - Coach Williams
Patricia Drake
[edit] Reception
In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $14.3 million, ranking third in the U.S. box office results for that weekend. As of November 2, the film has grossed $41 million domestically.
Reviews of the film were generally negative. Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times wrote that the film is "unforgivably clueless about teen culture" and "can't even sustain the courage of its girl-power convictions." Catsoulis was also critical of Metcalfe's "unconvincing" performance, writing that he musters "fewer expressions than a Botox infomercial."[1] Michael Medved gave John Tucker Must Die two stars out of four, calling it "slick, stupid and slightly sleazy," and that at the half-way mark, the plot collapses. He added that Jenny McCarthy, in a supporting role, "…is notably better than the rest of the cast.."[1] James Berardinelli of Reelviews also disliked the film. He gave it 1.5 stars out of 4, saying "The gulf is vast between what the studio wants us to think John Tucker Must Die is and what it really is. The marketers and publicists would have us believe this is a dark, edgy teen comedy about a band of two-timed girls taking revenge on the school's biggest hunk. Unfortunately, Betty Thomas' film is neither dark nor edgy (although it occasionally tries masquerading in those categories), nor is it particularly funny." He goes on to mention "The movie may be able to bamboozle a few teen female fans into multiplexes, but it's hard to imagine any of them - even those who swoon at the sight of Jesse Metcalfe – labeling this as better than forgettable. And for anyone outside that demographic unfortunate enough to endure John Tucker Must Die, the memory will be too painful to fade quickly."
