Oh, how clever the folks at Warner Brothers must think
themselves to be! In Fool’s
Gold, their mega-release for the weekend, they have a
dynamite date-movie if one ever existed. The picture functions
as both a romantic-comedy for the gals and an action-adventure
for the guys; it’s filled to the brim with both Lovey-Dovey and
Wham-Bam. In fact, how could the average American couple resist Fool’s
Gold? Between its perfect mix of testosterone and estrogen,
Matthew McConaughey’s frantic charisma and Kate Hudson’s
everygirl charm, and gorgeous Caribbean locales, the picture has
just about everything in the world going for it that could be,
right?
Wrong. Sure, the movie may boast
all of the above and a bag of chips, but that doesn’t excuse the
fact that it’s mind-numbingly, earth-shatteringly stupid. Fool’s
Gold assumes that
its audience is too dim-witted to realize that it’s only as
ingenious as it sounds on paper. Sure, the project was a smart
business-idea for Warner Brothers because it attracts the
interests of both demographics of viewers filling up
theatre-seats on Date Night. Sure, McConaughey was the perfect
choice for the cocky protagonist: he’s as much a heartthrob as
he is a doofus. Sure, Hudson fit into the scheme of things quite
nicely: she’s as likable and as smokin’ hot as leading ladies
come. And, sure, the Caribbean was the perfect place to set the
action because, heck, who doesn’t like looking at the Caribbean
projected onto a larger-than-life-sized screen for two hours?
Still, the fact that Fool’s
Gold chooses to
be so utterly trivial should insult everyone who lays down ten
bucks to see it.
As it turns out, the studio just
wanted to use the genre-blending premise as a gimmick to lure in
potential viewers. Turns out McConaughey and Hudson only chose
to participate so they could cash-in on killer-sized paychecks.
And, most unfortunately of all, it turns out that the
island-setting was only employed so that director Andy Tennant
would have an excuse to appropriately play reggae music in the
background in order to brainwash audiences into thinking they’re
having a good time.
McConaughey plays Finn Finnegan (as
you can tell from his name, he’s a real brainy guy), a
professional undersea-treasure-hunter who is on the brink of
making a huge discovery. He’s been searching for a stash of
sunken Spanish riches for years with his soon-to-be-ex wife Tess
(Hudson) and token Russian-sidekick Alfonz (Ewen Bremmer), and
he’s finally come into contact with clues that will lead him to
it. Of course, the path to the loot proves expectedly difficult
for Finn – and not just because it’s lost at sea. First, he must
convince the high-minded Tess to take him back before she
returns to graduate-school in Chicago once their divorce is
finalized. Additionally, he must escape the wrath of the
rapper-turned-thug-lord ruling the resident island (har-de-har-har),
who is out to kill Finn and take any potential treasure found in
the nearby waters for himself.
Matters complicate and, soon
enough, Finn enlists in his quest the help of multi-millionaire
businessman Nigel Honeycutt (a pathetically desperate-for-roles
Donald Sutherland), who has employed Tess as a servant on his
yacht since she left Finn. After a long string of lucky
occurrences, Finn convinces Nigel to allow his boat to be used
for the in-progress treasure-hunt. As expected, Finn and Tess
begin to reignite the dying sparks of their relationship in the
process of this, mainly because she becomes once again invested
in his wildly rousing expedition with the newfound knowledge
that the treasure is realistically ascertainable. Along for the
ride is Nigel’s Prada-sporting, twentysomething daughter, Gemma
(Alexis Dzeina), who exists as a comic-relief for the sole
purpose of reassuring idiotic viewers that they aren’t, indeed,
the dumbest living individuals on planet Earth.
For director Tennant, Fool’s
Gold’s utter mediocrity comes as no surprise. His previous
effort was Hitch,
a dead-in-the-water romantic-comedy that was elevated solely by
the charms of stars Will Smith and Kevin James. Unfortunately
for Tennant, McConaughey and Hudson don’t quite possess the same
level of talent as their industry-counterparts and this movie
takes a nose-dive as a result. Tennant’s approach is entirely
artificial; he constructs a vomit-inducing number of canned
montages and an equally-sickening tone of pseudo-jubilance. By
the half-hour mark, it becomes impossible to make any
emotional-investment in Fool’s
Gold merely
because of the lifeless way that the director assembles it. How
unfortunate that he is insistent upon making the affair last for
113 minutes, about twenty-five longer than any rational
filmmaker would allow such paper-thin material to run.
By the end of Fool’s
Gold, I felt nothing but anger – anger towards the fact that
Hollywood continues to green-light such unoriginal cash-cows. I
realize that making such a statement is only an act of
redundancy on my part—we critics constantly repeat it at every
chance we get—but it needs to be made until it is heard. In
fact, the only feature of this movie that I am able to
wholeheartedly praise is the eye-melting sight of Hudson
sporting a bikini for most of the running-length. Unfortunately, Fool’s
Gold will likely
go on to make every bit as much money as the folks at Warner
Brothers predict that it will. At this point, all I can hope for
is that the movie isn’t successful enough to warrant (God help
us all) a sequel.