Goose on the Loose (2006)

A grieving young boy (Morrow) looks to protect his new best friend, a talking goose, from his school principal (Chase), who's fattening up the bird for a Christmas cook-off.

Director:

Nicholas Kendall

Writer:

Charles Dennis

Stars:

Chevy Chase, Kari Matchett, James Purefoy

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Chevy Chase	...	Congreve Maddox
Kari Matchett	...	Donna Archer
James Purefoy	...	Kenneth Donnelly
Joan Plowright	...	Beatrice Fairfield
Max Morrow	...	Will Donnelly
Isabella Fink	...	Emily Donnelly
Cheyenne Hill	...	Liza
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tom Arnold	...	Randall (voice)
D'Arcy Browning	...	Cop
Olivia Cheng	...	Terry MacNeil
William B. Davis	...	Alphonse David
Eric Fink
Greg Lawson	...	Bouquette
Hugh Portman	...	Parker
Lori Ravensborg	...	Miss Hodgins

Storyline

A modern day fable, Goose! tells the tale of Randall, a neurotic talking goose, who is kidnapped by Congreve Maddox, the principal of the local elementary school. Maddox plans to fatten up Randall so that he can cook the bird and enter him in a culinary contest in Banff, Canada. But Randall has a savior in eleven-year-old Will Donnelly, a sweet and sensitive boy who stopped speaking after the death of his mother. Will and Randall meet and immediately become best friends - they share a love of butterscotch candies and rude noises. With Randall's help (the goose does consider himself the Sigmund Freud of the goose world), Will begins talking again. Will then becomes determined to prevent his pal from ending up as a side of foie gras. Together with his sister, Emily, and some classmates, Will hatches a plot: They'll kidnap Congreve's mother and arrange a hostage exchange for the goose. When that plan lays a goose egg, Will comes up with an even bolder rescue attempt, enlisting the aid of...

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Plot Keywords:

animal in title

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Genres:

Comedy | Family

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for some rude humor and mild language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Goose!

Filming Locations:

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Voice Pictures, Productions Colin Neale, Les, Studio Eight Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

A troubled production usually results in a bad movie. True in this case

This Canadian production had a very troubled production history. It was given the green light around 2003, getting a hefty amount of tax dollars from Telefilm, the country's government film funding agency (which, by the way, usually has no sense of what kind of films Canadians would like to watch.) The movie was filmed and edited, and then given a test screening in front of an audience of kids. The test screening was a disaster, with the kids not laughing at the jokes the filmmakers found funny. In desperation, the filmmakers then asked Telefilm for an additional one million dollars so they could do some reshoots. In another boneheaded decision, Telefilm agreed, and the filmmakers got the money for reshoots. But after the reshoots and reediting, the movie got caught in behind-the-scenes turmoil. I don't know what went on behind the scenes, but during the turmoil the movie got retitled several times and went back and forth from announcing Dave Foley or Tom Arnold as the voice of the goose. (In the end, Arnold voiced the goose.) Years went by with more turmoil, until in 2010 when the movie skipped a theatrical release and went straight to DVD in Canada.

With that in mind, and with the fact that the movie as of this date hasn't found an American distributor despite the presence of Tom Arnold and Chevy Chase in the cast, I predicted that the movie would be awful. While I didn't find it one of the worst movies ever made, it is still not a good movie. While it doesn't look cheap, I agree with the previous poster that it looks like a made-for-TV effort instead of something made for theatres. It's also pretty easy to spot the material that was done during the reshoots, since it really sticks out like a sore thumb. The goose's one-liners and other assorted jokes are quite unfunny despite Arnold delivering them with his trademark energy. Chevy Chase, on the other hand, comes across as quite bewildered most of the time, as if he can't comprehend how he, a former Hollywood "A" list star is now in a low budget Canadian kiddie movie. But the biggest problem is that the movie is woefully lacking in energy. It should be zany, but it's way too sedate for its own good. It comes across as if the filmmakers weren't trying very hard, especially how the movie's crisis is wrapped up at the end in a way that even kids will be confused and asking pointed questions that are never answered. Still, the movie gets some points by being one of the rare Canadian movies to be actually set in Canada.