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Comedian Aziz Ansari’s directorial feature ‘Good Fortune’ could well be described as ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ meets ‘Freaky Friday’ meets ‘Trading Places’ with a big old dollop of social commentary thrown in for good measure. I’ve never been a fan of Ansari’s but if he’s able to wrangle Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh and Keanu Reeves into this film it can’t be all bad right……right?
Arj (Ansari) is a struggling documentarian wrking as a ‘task man’ in LA, doing whatever is required by his customers, until one day he is hired by techie Jeff (Rogen) before being swiftly fired for using the company credit card to woo Elena (Palmer). Seeing his displeasure, Angel Gabriel (Reeves), also unfulfilled with his role (texting and driving), sees the opportunity to guide Arj and goes off script, only to end up making things worse for all concerned. On paper, this body-swap comedy had promise, very much so, however little of that translates to the screen.
‘Good Fortune’ is sweet and well-intentioned but given the footnotes Ansari has clearly used for inspiration, it lacks any sort of bite or overly absurd scenario for anyone to really go to town on, so for nigh on 97 minutes, the audience has to sit through what amounts to a rom-com with the occasional slightly amusing moment, with an unnecessarily convoluted plot that focuses more on the social commentary liberally sprinkled throughout.
It’s the performances which give ‘Good Fortune’ some, eh, …good fortune thanks to a fine turn from Rogen as the obnoxious rich man, going off on one whenever possible and Palmer is sweet enough when dolling out home truths.
But the MVP is Reeves. He steals the show as the earnest, goofy, nice-but-dim Gabriel who eventually gets beaten down by the world and has a penchant for Mexican discos and ‘chicken nuggies’; indeed he’s the only reason to watch it in my book.