Scene Analysis - Good Burger

Hey yall, I'm back with another post! Today I'm gonna be going over my favorite movie scenes from the movie Good Burger.

Good Burger is a 1997 American comedy film written by Dan Schneider, Kevin Kopelow, and Heath Seifert, and directed by Brian Robbins. 

Here is a quick summary:

Dexter is a high-schooler who crashes his Mom's car, so he is forced to get a job at a burger joint called 'Good Burger.' Things at Good Burger weren't looking so good, as an evil rival chain, Mondo Burger, was opening across the street. Ed, the not-so-bright cashier, and Dexter team up to save Good Burger, uncovering lots of Mondo Burger's trade secrets, many of which are illegal.

Note: I got all my clips from MovieClips.com, as Apple TV does not let me record over the streaming.

Now that we have that out the way, let's start analyzing some of the scenes of the movie.

Let's start with the first scene of the movie:

We open at Good Burger, with a close-up shot of Ed, one of our main characters. This shot is good at establishing his natural demeanor, which I'd say is dimwitted. In my opinion, this scene is one of the best out of the whole movie, only because of how normal it is (compared to the rest of the movie).

Now, we move on to an interaction between Ed and an angry customer:

In this scene, we are shown both the customer and Ed having a dialogue, be it a not-so-friendly encounter. This scene incorporates both a two-shot and over-the-shoulder shot (OTS), which makes us feel in the moment, where we can empathize with the customer. We can see the true emotion of the characters, especially the angry customer when we use the OTS shot. When the OTS is from Ed's view, we can see how irate he gets when Ed tells him that a plain sandwich means he doesn't get any meat. But when viewed from the customer's shoulder, we see how Ed thinks this is just a normal thing. 

Let's skip ahead a little, to this scene:

Here is an excellent example of a two-shot taken from an OTS perspective. In the scene, Ed and Dexter are talking about doing a double-date, because Ed just got asked out by a random lady... yes, I mean random... Dexter wants to take Monique, who is the girl whose shoulder we are viewing over. Dexter, however, doesn't think Monique likes him, so Ed turns to ask Monique out for Dexter. I think this shot is a good way to incorporate all 3 characters in the scene appropriately because the scene mainly focuses on Ed and Dexter, but Monique is the subject of the discussion.

I'm gonna skip towards to end of the movie, where Ed and Dexter destroy Mondo Burger using a MONDO burger... seriously:

The majority of these last few scenes, it's shot from a low angle. This isn't done to make the actors feel empowered, unlike most low angles. It's done to show the scale of the destruction. Imagine the part where the giant soda cup falls over from a straight or high angle, it just wouldn't give justification for everyone's panic. I also love how towards the end, the giant burger falls on Mr. Wheat's car, which is a recurring theme throughout the movie where somehow, his stuff kept getting destroyed by Dexter, by accident... but this isn't a movie review, so I didn't bother to mention that... whoops.

Finally, the final scene. I'll let it speak for itself:

This scene is... the best. Ed thinks Dexter is leaving for some odd reason and gets all emotional, which I think the OTS shots throughout the scene just adds so much meaning too. I can't really translate this scene into words, but if I had to, I'd say it's so comedically bad that it is somehow good...

This movie confuses me, but it is hands-down the best "buddy comedy" production of the era. From shows like Drake and Josh to this, the 90s was just craaaaaazy...

Thank yall for reading, cya next time!