[DVD Review (R2)] FOOL’S GOLD
Fool’s Gold is a romantic action comedy that is devoid of laughs, uninspiring in what little action it possesses and anchored by two lead performers who only serve to annoy us so much that our desire to see them find love together falls considerably far behind our desire to see them drown a slow and painful death. Into this foray it drags Donald Sutherland (doing a horrendous British accent), Ray Winstone (doing a horrendous “?” accent) and Ewan Bremner (whose comedic ‘foreign’ schtick got old right after Trainspotting debuted!).
In my on-going pursuit to have Stale Popcorn get quoted on the poster or DVD art for ANY film (seriously distributors, we’re whoring ourselves widely here - ANY! We mean ANY!) I offer up this:
“You’d Be A Fool To Think This Is Worth Your Time, Let Alone ‘Gold’!”
What’s that? I’m missing the point of just “how” I get myself into the post-quote business? ‘Positive quotes only’ you say? Right, what about this then:
“Compared to having a nail gun fired at your scrotum, Fool’s Gold is a great way to spend a couple of hours!”
No?
The plot, for what it is worth, introduces us to Benjamin Finnegan (Matthew McConaughey), a deep-sea treasure hunter who is certain he’s onto the ‘find of the century’ in waters near an island close to Key West - owned by a murderous rap star to whom Ben is in debt. Ben’s flat broke and recently divorced from Tess (Kate Hudson), his long-time research and diving partner whom he still loves. She’s nearby, working as a steward aboard the yacht of Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), a multimillionaire. Can Ben convince Nigel to bankroll his search, convince Tess to work with him, keep the rapper and his thugs at bay, and find a Spanish treasure hidden for centuries and rich beyond imagination?
Fool’s Gold exists as one of those horrendously muddled script-jobs where characters exist as enemies only so that their eventual turn around to ’friend’ can be passed off as a ‘third act arc’. It has characters speaking dialogue that never feels remotely true or believable, let alone easy on the ear. And it has a plot with no throughline; mired in over-complicated subplots, unnecessary side characters and instances that throw complete and utter illogical hapanstance in our faces (our lead ‘hero’ survives a first act drowning by firing a gun underwater; guns firing under-water stopped being something audiences “bought” back in 1982!).
On top of this, it is “driven” by lead-performances from two performers who are starting to out stay their welcome with the same, stale schtick they keep forcing down our throats: Hudson came to our attention wonderfully in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous but has done nothing but channel her mother (Goldie Hawn, for the ignorant readers amongst you!) and channel her badly since. On top of that, she’s constantly going OTT in every film and it just smacks of utter desperation. The woman, to put it nicely, cannot ’do’ comedy, only ever appears vain on screen so isn’t likeable enough to portray romance and cannot ’sell’ action… so, Miss Hudson, I guess your future screams ‘porn’ if you ask me!
Then there’s Matthew McConaughey. Has there been a more interesting screen prescence to burn the fuck out so quickly after just one movie? I remember seeing him in A Time To Kill and being impressed. But then every movie after that, bar a few exceptions, just left me thinking that this laid-back surfer boy bollocks is just not appealing any more. Most certainly in the case of those god awful throwaway “romantic comedies” he does where he plays the same role over and over again. I liked what he did in Tropic Thunder. Very much so. But something tells me that, although those type of roles are ones he’d have to fight to get, that sort of work is where he should be heading! He appears to like ‘coasting’ more then challenging himself though. Even as a die hard Magnum PI fan, I’ll be the first to admit that this is where that aforementioned “laid-back surfer boy bollocks” could actually work to his advantage. But the rumour mill suggests McConaughey isn’t too keen as the role comes with a “franchise contract” and he’s allegedly burnt out by bad experiences with such contracts post-Sahara.
Either way, my message to you Mr McConaughey sir is simple: stop making shite!
I was quite the fan of Sahara (flame away on me!) so accusations of this being Sahara 2 are a little unfair. But believe me, the critics aren’t too far off in just how severely they’ve deboweled this flick. It’s an expensive studio movie that should illicit comments of “Wow! How’s the hero going to get out of this?” or “Man, I hope those two get it together!” or, at the very least, “Oooh, don’t those locations look gorgeous?“. Instead the only thing running through your head when watching this will be one of four things:
1. If you’re MALE: “McConaughey, you nobber! Put a fuckin’ shirt on will you!”
2. If you’re FEMALE: “Jesus Christ, if they could just take some of the size from Kate Hudson’s exceptionally large ears and put them towards her non-existent breasts then she might look half-way normal! Owen Wilson slit his wrists over ‘that’? Man!”
3. If you have TASTE: “Ewan Bremner? Die! Die! Die! Seriously, I’m not one for being this OTT, but you really do deserve to die!”
4. If you’re in the least bit NOSTALGIC: “Woah, isn’t that the ’son’ from The Cosby Show? Boy didn’t he get fat huh?”
NB: Despite denying it early last year, Hudson is allegedly “warming” to the idea of rejoining McConaughey a third time for a remake of her own mother’s cult classic, Foul Play, with her in the Goldie Hawn role and McConaughey channelling the role that made Chevy Chase a ‘big screen commodity’. I have checked the bible and discovered that, yes, this is indeed the sign of the apocalypse!
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12 Responses to “[DVD Review (R2)] FOOL’S GOLD”
I hate both of these people so much it hurts.
I feel the same about Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. So much so that I once met a survivor of Hurricane Katrina and she was telling me about the travesty of losing her home and all her worldly goods etc.
I said to her “Have you seen Elizabethtown?”
She said “No”
I said “Then I think you should shut the **** up!”
Bloom was AWFUL in Elizabethtown. Holy crap! His American accent was laughable.
And Dunst not only is a crap actress, but has snaggleteeth. Boo.
Cameron Crowe sacked Ashton Kutcher and hired Orlando Bloom for the lead?
That’s like sacking Michael Jackson as your babysitter but hiring Gary Glitter to replace him!
ELIZABETHTOWN? A movie SO awful that it killed Crowe’s directorial thirst!
PS
As I just explained to Wyv, I was absolutely gutted as two hours after publishing this review I got an email pertaining to be from ‘Kate Hudson’s Hollywood Agent’ who, amongst a lot of other things, pulled me to task for this review AND called me ‘a sad little internet virgin who no doubt has some sort of crush on my client but thinks hating on her will be a way of catching her attention!’
I’d be offended about the ‘virgin’ remark, and so would that ONE woman I’ve slept (not so sure what an ‘internet virgin’ is though) if it wasn’t for the fact that I couldn’t stop laughing.
It most certainly looked legit AND initial scrutiny suggested it was the real-deal, which absolutely delighted me. I genuinely thought NOTHING could ever top the 3 line e-mail I got off Sly Stallone (REALLY!!!) when I published the Rocky Balboa review on Filmrot, but this really did amuse the **** out of me because I thought if he didn’t spend all his time watching the Google News Alerts for his client and spent more time actually getting her good roles, then “sad” people like me wouldn’t savagely attack her in my reviews.
BUT a bit more investigation has revealed it to be a fake. A good fake, but a fake all the same. I was gutted man. I went from thinking “Man, Kate Hudson’s agent is a bit of a weirdo huh?” to being stuck thinking “Who the hell is sad enough to go to this much trouble to defend the honour of Kate Hudson?”
Damnit!
So what did the 3 line email from Stallone say then?
Maybe the phantom emailer ‘agent’ was McConaughey himself!?! Lets face it if these people are going to keep getting paid for pairing up and making this drivel you think they really care?? Where’s Doris day and Rock Hudson when you need them! Well surely a little thing like being dead shouldn’t matter, seeing as most of the actors these days behave like corpses!…I’ll stop ranting now
And beofre you all jump on me I know doris is still alive, but for arguments sake say she wasn’t
“Thank you for your considered opinion on the new Rocky movie. It is obviously a great personal pleasure to me to discover that this film is having a strong impact on long standing, passionate fans of the series! Good luck with your future ventures.”
Doris Day is STILL alive?
Well I want my ****ing money back! Jesus, there’s not even integrity with hitmen these days!
That’s very polite of him. Impressed.
It came through his website and he sent a lot of them out to a lot of the littler movie publications and movie websites from the rumour I’ve been told. Exact same text and everything. I thought it was a really cool gesture all the same!
Never did hear back from him regarding my RAMBO review though
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