Fool’s Gold

A treasure hunter is about to sign the final papers on his divorce when he falls upon a 300-year old missing jackpot under the sea, and shares the experience with his ex-wife-to-be. She decides to help him with this “one last haul”, and they soon join up with a really rich guy and his dummy daughter, in order to increase their chances of nabbing the jewels before the local baddies. A shirtless Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson in various bikinis…ensue!

The trailers for this movie left very little to be desired, as did the general consensus from critics, but I guess I was still hoping for a little bit of that chemistry and charm that both Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson demonstrated in their last romantic comedy together, HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS – a film that has actually “grown on me” over the years. Unfortunately for me and anyone else who goes into this movie thinking the same, the problem is that the studio has highly mis-marketed this film, since it isn’t really a “romantic comedy” at all (although it was released a week before Valentine’s Day), but rather, an adventure film featuring an ex-couple going through the typical “Do I still love this person?” types of questions. The film has very little romance and even less comedy in its midst, and plays more like a low-rent version of INTO THE BLUE, which in itself, was a low-rent version of many other better underwater adventure movies. This film focuses more on its soundtrack and the views of both the gorgeous blue beaches all around, and the gorgeous bodies on both McConaughey and Hudson (great ass!!! – I’m talking about McConaughey, by the way). In fact, if you just wanna watch a movie because it “looks good” on the screen, you might want to rent this puppy and leave it on in the background without any sound, since the story is about as uninteresting as it gets. The film also closes in on the 2-hour mark, so no easy 90-minute watch here.

Early on, the film prepares us for what’s to come when the lead duo spend about 10 screen minutes dissecting the cockeyed setup behind the “missing treasure” to paycheck-cashing Donald Sutherland, and you quickly start to realize that the people behind the film were actually hoping to develop a real mystery behind their treasure adventure. Sadly for them, almost nothing about the caper is engaging, and the tone of the entire film is off, with an odd balance of light comedy, pratfalls, drama between Sutherland and his dumb-as-a-post daughter, as well as some cheap moments of action/adventure being mixed in with some actual blood and murders?? Anytime you kill someone in such a film, you basically ruin the “light dynamic” of it all, no? I mean, on the one hand, the filmmakers are trying to develop this “romance” between the lead heartthrobs, but on the other hand, the film focuses on some ganglord running the island who doesn’t mind killing folks to get what he wants. I won’t bore you with the details of that story because the film does a fine job of that itself, but needless to say, if romance and comedy is what you’re looking for, FOOL’S GOLD is not the film for you. The film’s final half hour does feature some decent action though, but by that point, you don’t really care too much about much. I suggest you rent HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS again and try to figure out why both of these actors signed on to this piece of shit follow-up to their initial success. PS: If you’re a fan of “the shirtless McConaughey” (and really, who isn’t?), this movie is ideally suited for you, as he seems to be shirtless throughout almost the entire picture. Thanks man!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian