THE GOLDBERG VARIATION

In Chicago, a man by the name of Henry Weems wins $100,000 playing poker against a mobster named Joe Cutrona, though Weems appears ignorant of the basic rules of poker. Suspecting that Weems cheated, Cutrona attempts to kill him by throwing him off the 29th story of the building they are in. After Weems lands in an access hatch to a basement, he stands right back up and walks away, completely uninjured. Two agents in a car stationed outside witness the event and eventually tell Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who promptly take the case. Mulder initially believes the man has the ability to cure himself, but Scully thinks he may just be very lucky by landing in a pile of laundry that was right under the access hatch.

The agents track down Weems, a handyman at an apartment building. He refuses to testify against Cutrona. Weems has a fascination with Rube Goldberg machines. As such, his apartment is filled with them. Scully concludes that there is no X-File, but Mulder believes that his luck is the X-File in question. As the agents begin to leave, one of Cutrona's enforcers comes to kill Weems. However, the assassin dies in an improbable cascade of events reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine: after being distracted when Mulder buzzes the intercom, he accidentally shoots a lamp that knocks over an ironing board, then trips over the ironing board and ends up getting strangled in a fan. The two agents rush back up stairs and find Weems unscathed. Mulder notes that Weems was the sole survivor of a commuter jet crash that killed 20 people in December 1989, where he was placed in Seat 13 of Flight 7: lucky numbers.

Weems picks up a lottery ticket and wins $100,000, but throws the ticket away when he learns that it would take 12 months to get the money. A man picks the ticket out of the trash and is then hit by a truck after Weems warned him that "something bad will happen." Later, as Mulder questions Weems again, another one of Cutrona's enforcers tries to kill him, only for his bullet to ricochet off Weems' pocket knife, barely graze Mulder's arm, and hit and kill the enforcer. Weems confesses that he's been trying to find a way to get $100,000 to pay for an expensive medical treatment for a boy in his apartment building named Richie (Shia LaBeouf). His attempts at getting the money, however, have brought him above the radar. Later, after Weems is hit by a car, it appears that Henry's lucky streak has reached its end. Cutrona kidnaps Richie's mom, Maggie, to stop Weems from testifying against him. Weems turns himself in to Cutrona so he would let Maggie go; instead, they plan to kill him. As they are about to execute Weems in the basement, Cutrona and his mobster partner, Dominic, are killed in a bizarre turn of events, whereas Weems and Maggie are unharmed as Mulder arrives with backup. In the end, it turns out by surprise that Cutrona is an organ donor and a perfect match for Richie, who gets the treatment and lives. Weems then activates a toy Goldberg machine that he made for Richie earlier

Copyright(c) 2007 - 2025. All rights reserved