Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh
Where to watch: PrimeVideo
To watch or not to watch: Aziz Ansari shines in his directorial debut, the story is great, but fizzles out towards the end
Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) is a low-ranking angel in the hierarchy, responsible for saving people from accidents while texting and driving. But like most low-ranking people, he aspires to grow and be responsible for more serious soul-saving acts, but Martha (Sandra Oh) tells him that needs to perform the duties given to him diligently and that he is not ready to handle more responsibility. But Gabriel is adamant, and he finds Arj (Aziz Ansari) who is working odd-jobs and living out of his car. Arj meets Jeff (Seth Rogen) while doing one of his jobs, and learns that Jeff is in need of an assistant, and being enterprising, applies for the job, gets it and starts working as Jeff’s assistant. His life is good for almost one full day, until he uses Jeff’s company credit card to pay for a dinner on a date, which leads to Jeff firing him. Arj then hits rock-bottom when his car is towed because of unpaid parking tickets. Gabriel seeing this, decides that Arj will be the recipient of his beneficence, and grants Arj’s wish to swap places with Jeff, just to show Arj that money is not what it is purported to be. But on the contrary, Arj’s life is better than he could have imagined, and money has solved all of his problems. Martha learns what Gabriel has done and take away his angel status, and will return it only when Arj agrees to swaps his life back with Jeff. This is followed by a commentary on the economy, humanity, and how the wealthy can help the non-wealthy live a better life. It makes for a good concept but not a good movie.
Good Fortune takes the old trope of body swaps and turns it on its head to make it more real. It is turning the adage “High School are the best years” on its head for people who peaked later in life. Imagine Freaky Friday where Lindsay Lohan was having a horrible time at school because of not fitting in, and she swaps with her mother, who has a successful career and a stable relationship; she would not be complaining about the swap. The same thing happens here, which you have read above, and the results are so refreshingly new and honest that it makes the viewer want to wait and see where it goes. And where it goes doesn’t complement the premise. It then loses its USP and becomes predictable and downright silly. It leverages a lot of real personalities of the actors, most obvious being Keanu Reeves. It is easy to imagine him believing that money is not all it is made out to be, because that’s how he is in real life. Seth Rogen is unfortunately not doing much, though there is a lot of potential in his character – either that was his understanding of the script, or he was not very interested, who knows.
This movie has its heart in the right place – it sends a message of empathy and understanding for others who might be dealing with things we are not aware of. But because it is not well made and becomes childish towards the end (when it began as really mature and real and adult-like, it is jarring), it is difficult to say how many people would be watching this movie and then learning from it. It does get points for doing the right thing for the right reasons by the right people. It will be exciting to see Aziz Ansari come out with something interesting down the line. Watch this one, you won’t hate it, but not love it either. Hopefully it changes your perspective towards people who are less-advantaged than you.
To see or not to see 