"Fool's Gold" Review - Written by Spaldy

The ads for this movie began appearing all around town at bus stops about a month ago. Kate Hudson resembles nothing so much as C3PO is these photo ads. When you can say that about yourself, it’s time to put down the bronzer and go eat a sandwich.

Pre-show: Fully expecting this movie to suck balls, I was not really looking forward to the experience. Last week’s exposure to “Over Her Dead Body” had taken a toll on me and the lack of Paul Rudd in “Fool’s Gold” was giving me precious little to work with. The pre-show commercials made this even more difficult thanks to some of the worst ad placement I have ever seen in my life. I watched the AMC hot dog ad ten times. Literally. Eight of these were back to back in a row. It was like some sort of cult conditioning technique that could be used by the national hot dog council. The music haunts my dreams. Then it occurred to me that these ads were remarkably similar to McConaughey’s films: the stuff in them doesn’t sit will after ingesting, and they are repetitive, hokey, and star a wiener. Thanks to the five ads in a row for the local community college that followed, I fully intend to write a thesis on this matter for a BA degree.

Movie: “Fool’s Gold” opens with Finn (McConaughey) searching for a lost treasure ship down in the keys of Florida. While he is busy underwater, the air compressor on board sets the boat on fire. The boat explodes, sinks, and helps uncover artifacts of the ship he is looking for; in particular a fragment of a plate. Though the plate represents a clue to finding the treasure, his investor Bigg Bunny (a local gangster) loses faith in him and orders him killed. Finn escapes his own death, but due to the delay he is minutes too late to save the death of his marriage. Freshly divorced, Finn tries to convince his now ex wife Tess (Kate Hudson) that he has picked up the trail of the ship they have been searching for over the past two years. Tess is reluctant to get involved with Finn, but after a string of “funny” circumstances, she is looking for the treasure with Finn once again.

Anyone who has ever had to sit through a Hollywood film should know that these two crazy kids are still in love and will get back together. However, for those of you who didn’t see this coming, the constant barrage of references to how much Tess loves doing the sweaty with Finn might be just the tip you need to figure out how it ends. There were so many references to Finn’s sexual ability that one can not help but wonder whether this was some sort of clause in Matthew McConaughey’s contract. I guess if you were going to star in crap like this you would need to get something out of it. Although, since this is a fictional film, what’s the point?

This movie is reminiscent of McConaughey’s last action effort, “Sahara.” This too does not know whether it is a comedy or an action adventure. The trailers show it as more of a romantic comedy, but the romance here has no passion and nothing really to root for. One honestly could not care less whether Tess and Finn make it as a couple. The movie is actually better than the trailer, but that isn’t saying much. I must admit I was a little interested by the treasure hunt story, and that was why I ended up giving the movie a two. I really hate that I got a little caught up in the last twenty minutes or so, but I did. I’m not proud of that. As a romantic comedy this movie fails rather miserably. As an adventure film it had potential if only they had reworked it some more. Script wise the dialogue was weak and had very little to laugh at; intentionally or otherwise. The script definitely could have benefited from a couple more drafts or even a new writer to refocus the story.

On the shallow side of things, I was little weirded out by the women in this film. There are only three of them in a cast of mostly men, but I could not help but notice how tiny they were. There is definitely something strange about the fact that either Matthew McConaughey or Donald Sutherland alone had bigger boobs than all the women in this film combined. Even more disturbing was the character of Gemma, who is the dumb daughter of Donald Sutherland’s character Nigel. Gemma looked about 12 years old and was constantly parading around in almost nothing. The actress may be of age (she is 24), but I still had this unsettling feeling that the movie was bordering on child pornography at times. In spirit if not in actuality. I think this springs not only from her body type, but also because her character was portrayed as someone who was about eight years old emotionally and mentally.

Overall, this movie is an almost total waste of time. However, I would not go so far as to say that if it crops up on cable in the future that you should avoid it. As I said before, some of the treasure hunt story is interesting but it really isn’t enough to make this movie worth the effort to track down. As background TV for when you are cleaning and doing laundry? Not a bad choice though. As there is very little of it to enjoy though, I would try to avoid this in theatres as best you can. If you are looking for a date movie for this week, I would recommend renting a better movie to watch at home. That way if the date isn’t going well, you can still enjoy a decent movie and if it does go well, you can make out in private and rewind the movie later.