National Lampoon’s PUCKED(2006)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

On the opening night of the Worldwide Women’s Hockey League, officers from the police department’s fraud division show up to arrest Frank (Jon Bon Jovi) on several charges, all relating to his fraudulent use of his credit cards. Disgusted with Frank because she thought he had reformed, Jessica (Estella Warren) abandons him just before he gets taken away.

Frank is later bailed out by his sister, Leona (Nora Dunn), and after letting him know that she is very displeased with him, she tells him that he is going to need a trial lawyer because the credit card companies will more than likely try to make an example out of him as a warning to all other card delinquents. The next day, Leona visits Jessica in her office and manages to persuade her to defend Frank in court, telling her that he is a good guy despite his many personality flaws and she doesn’t want to see him get put in prison. When Leona later tells Frank about what she has done for him, he accepts the arrangement, but he also acknowledges that he has blown it with Jessica romantically. When he meets with Jessica to go over the case, she warns him that her old boyfriend Norman (Cary Elwes), the Assistant D.A., will be serving as prosecutor, and she tells him that it would be best for him to refrain from testifying because it will keep him out of jail. However, Frank refuses to heed this advice, not only because it will put an end to the hockey league, but also because he feels he needs to redeem the players.

Norman figuratively skins Frank alive on the first day of the trial, and after court adjourns for the day, Jessica tells Frank that they have to make a deal, but Frank still won’t accept this notion. She thus tells him that, if he won’t listen to her, then maybe he should represent himself. He decides to do so, and he spends the next few days re-familiarizing himself with law with the help of his friends Carl (David Faustino) and Elvis (Pat Kilbane). He also manages to come across some evidence that – while left unknown to the viewer – looks very helpful to him.

When the trial resumes, Frank turns the tide on the credit card companies by exposing them as being incompetent, first by proving that they gave him his first card for having “impeccable credit” when he never had any to begin with, and they continued to give him more cards while remaining completely ignorant about this fact. Secondly, he shows that they have also given credit cards to an assortment of people who have no use for them, as well as animals and even a ventriloquist’s dummy, which is a clear pattern of greed on their part. After the next-to-last day of the trial concludes, Jessica stops by Frank’s and Leona’s house and praises Frank for his performance and skills before encouraging him to tear up the prosecution tomorrow.

The next day, Frank and Norman give their summations, and after the jury deliberates on the matter, they ultimately declare Frank not guilty on all charges. As Frank celebrates with his friends and the hockey players, he tells them that he has decided to put the hockey league on hold until he can pay off all of his credit card debts. Suddenly, Elvis gives him a check to cover the debts, then tells him that he will waive the first year’s rent on the ice rink. He then explains that, despite the fact that he looks like a homeless man, he actually owns the rink as well as the bank across the street from it.

In the closing scenes, we find out that, in order to curb any of the league’s future financial problems, the players came up with their own solution: They all got credit cards to put these future problems onto.