REVIEW:
Here’s the thing about Good Fortune… the premise is great. The cast is great. And yet somehow it doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts. It’s not nearly as funny as it should be, considering the talent involved. And the story is great for at least two thirds, but then really drops the ball in the final act.
Let’s start with the cast. Keanu Reeves is in the movie, as is Keke Palmer, but the real comedy chops behind this one are Aziz Sanari and Seth Rogen. Now Rogen happens to be one of the brightest minds in comedy working today. Neatly everything he writes turns to gold, from The Boys to the Studio. There’s just one problem. This is not his movie. He clearly didn’t write this thing. It’s not his brand of humor. Instead, it’s Aziz, who both wrote and directed this one.
Aziz’s humor is much more about simple politically correct observations… like “we don’t say that word anymore,” kind of jokes. Or “can’t you just call me your friend, instead of your Indian friend?” It was funny when it was used in the Hangover, over a decade ago, with reference to “Black Doug.” Now it’s just old. So the humor isn’t great. Luckily the story more than makes up for it.
The story here is actually pretty clever. It’s a Trading Places / Freaky Friday like situation. A poor, down on his luck guy (Ari, played by Aziz,) switches lives with a wealthy tech bro (Jeff, played by Rogen.) Cross the trading lives story with a touch of It’s a Wonderful Life (enter Keanu Reeves as Gabriel, a guardian angel,) and you’ve got this movie. Gabriel’s mission is to get Arj to realize he’d be happier in his own life then in that of the tech bro. Good luck with that.
In fact, that’s exactly the problem. The movie doesn’t ever provide a convincing argument for why Arj’s former life is better than his new one. Sure there are small things, that are basically only mentioned once, briefly (his dad doesn’t know him as the tech bro, and looks at him like a stranger,) but there’s not enough. It seems like so much energy is put into the first two thirds, giving full stories to three characters (Arj, Jeff, and Gabriel,) that there’s very little left in the tank for the final act. This movie definitely took a somewhat familiar mashup of stories and made them feel fresh and creative, but it didn’t quite deliver on the comedy and it definitely didn’t deliver on the ending.