FOOL’S GOLD
Warner Bros
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C
Directed by: Andrew Tennant
Written By: John Claffin, Daniel Zelman, Andrew Tennant, story by John Claffin, Daniel Zelman
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Kevin Hart, Donald Sutherland, Alexis Dziena Ewen Bremmer
Screened at: Warner Bros., NYC, 1/17/08
Opens: February 8, 2008
Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey sizzle. The chemistry between these two actors, so often seen in highly commercial movies like this one, is palpable. When they kiss, or clinch, or in one case when Ms. Hudson in the heat of passion literally jumps Mr. McC, we in the audience could see that leap coming from a minute away. They can simply gaze eye to eye and we in the audience may wonder, “How can they even concentrate on anything they’re saying to each other?” Isn’t it a shame, then, that they have to take part in a movie with such lame dialogue? When it comes to writing a script, two or three heads is almost never better than one and, sure enough, three people were needed to mangle a script, while one director, Andrew Tennant, takes on the job of helming some of the stupidest, most embarrassing-to-watch keystone villains, if you will, one bimbo who is painful to listen to and who is perhaps meant to mirror the writers’ or director’s insight into teen or twenty-something female culture, and one insanely rich old dad who must struggle through a top-heavy British accent that would have even Queen Elizabeth bursting into unintentional laughter.
“Fool’s Gold” is part romance, part adventure, and all derivative, featuring a few dashing action scenes and one surprisingly intellectual yacht-board discussion that seems to have come from another movie briefly describing the history of a Spanish treasure that was abandoned in the early part of the Eighteenth Century somewhere around the Bahamas. (Because of weather conditions, “Fool’s Gold” could not be shot in the Caribbean but was instead filmed in and around Queensland, Australia—in Port Douglas, Lizard Island, the Whitsundays, and the Gold Coast.)
The plot centers on the plan of outdoorsman Finn (Matthew McConaughey), a man who owes a mobster over $60,000, to find the aforementioned buried treasure, not an entirely quixotic quest in that (according to production notes) “the earth is seventy-five percent water and ninety-five percent of it is unexplored, so there’s a lot out there that has never been found.”
Newly divorced from Tess (Kate Hudson), believing they will never again meet, they are surprised to find each other aboard a yacht owned by tycoon Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), she as a steward and he having conned his way aboard as part of his plan to get the treasure. Complications develop when Nigel’s naïve daughter Gemma (Alexis Dzienna) climbs aboard, and cartoonish villains led by Moe Fitch (Ray Winstone) chase after Finn and his right hand man, Alfonz (Ewen Bremner. After several knock-down, drag-out battles, near-drowning, a close-call on a seaplane, potential burials alive, the usual explosions (this review will not reveal whether Spanish coins and jewelry were discovered), it was back to Key West for the heroes and back from Australia for the actors.
Thanks to Don Burgess’s photography, we get to see water that’s blue and green and not brown, and it’s always nice to watch Kate Hudson.
Rated PG-13. 103 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
Edited 2/2/08 by harveykarten |
