by Samuel Nichols, Contributing Writer
There are some celebrities that I wouldn’t pin to be an angel. Sure, a lot of actors could play an angel believably (Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington), but if there is a global superstar that might be a real angel, it is Keanu Reeves himself. Seriously, this guy mocks the paparazzi, makes great action movies, tells jokes, and gives a ton of money to charity. I would protect him like that puppy in John Wick. So when I heard he was playing a low-rank angel in Aziz Ansari’s Good Fortune, I was in.
Arj (Ansari) is down on his luck just trying to make ends meet. He got a degree and hustles hard, but life just hasn’t worked out for him. After he’s let go from his assistant job for finance bro Jeff (Seth Rogen), he finds himself face-to-face with his guardian angel Gabriel (Reeves). Although Gabriel reminds Arj that the wealth someone like Jeff has isn’t all that gives value to life, Arj struggles to find meaning in what he has. So Gabriel offers him a switcharoo, and swapping Arj’s life for Jeff’s. Will this be enough for Arj to see his own life has value or will he be completely sucked in by the comfort of wealth?
What this movie has going for it at its very best is the charm of the cast. Reeves, Rogen, and Ansari have an effortless way of getting you to glom on to them and root for them. Whether they are rich or broke or a celestial being with tiny wings, they’re all someone you wanna see succeed. None of them are really the lead, because they work so well together. The movie shines when any two of the three are on screen together — their chemistry carries the movie.
But that’s a double-edged sword, because the interest level drops off when it is just one of them in a scene. There are other stars — like Keke Palmer as a love interest for Arj, and Sandra Oh is Gabriel’s superior in the angelic ranks — who are talented enough to have carried their own projects, but they are underutilized here.
The themes of the haves versus the have-nots are very strong because of the dedication the movie puts into showing the difference in these realities. We get to see how easy it is to float through life when you have money. Conversely, it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to just survive when you are at the bottom of the barrel. There are some funny scenes of Gabriel learning about taxes at a low level job and how much money gets taken away from your paycheck.
That theme of class difference and the crushing pressure on the underclass makes it easy to pick up the message from this movie. But the message feels so obvious that it takes away the originality of the story the movie’s telling. This is not exactly It’s a Wonderful Life, but we know from the beginning how this life swap will turn out. A little more subtlety would have gone a long way.
But those jokes and the likability of the stars really carry a lot for Good Fortune. The pure nature of the message works with our stars, making it easy to root for them.
Rating: High Side of Liked It
Good Fortune is currently playing in theaters
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