Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Jewel of Denial By Michael C. Riedlinger Editor-In-Chief             Romantic-Adventure-Comedy is not a new genre of film; it’s just a difficult one to pull off successfully. The 1980’s had a few that worked well, (i.e.Romancing the Stone) but plenty more that were just garbage. Fool’s Gold is more likely to fit in with this latter batch of films than anything else, except that I don’t know we can truly apply the comedy portion of that description. The film tries to be funny, exciting, and touching, but cannot seem to get the chemistry right and falls short of the mark.             The story follows Benjamin Finnegan (Matthew McConaughey) as he attempts to track down The Queen’s Dowry, a sunken Spanish treasure lost somewhere in the Caribbean. Sadly, the treasure becomes a more interesting character than the two-dimensional cast almost from its first mention. The treasure, by the way, is fictional, even though I’m sure there are plenty of lost treasures in that part of the world they could have used if they wanted to. But I digress, because that is the least of this film’s problems.

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            Finnegan’s wife Tess (Kate Hudson) divorces him in the first fifteen minutes of the film, setting up the requisite “boy-gets-girl-back” plot that will drive this film… Except that it doesn’t. We get a few gushing moments about how good Finnegan is in bed from Tess, and she really doesn’t say much else about him to convince us that she is a woman in love, but frustrated, and that the divorce was a mistake. Maybe it’s a lack of romantic chemistry; Finnegan touches the heiress, Gemma (Alexis Dziena, Invasion), with much more promise of sex than he ever does Tess. Whatever the reason, I just couldn’t get into the love story, so I tried to focus on the comedy and the action.             Comedy was in short supply, as I mentioned before, and quickly came to rely on Jessica Simpson-esque moments from the heiress. Note to screenwriters John Claflin, Daniel Zelman and Andy Tennant (who also directed): what is funny on reality TV is less so when it’s scripted. Gemma is essentially reduced to a one-note punch line with a too-skinny body. When a sword lands squarely, and phallicly, between her way-too-wide-stretched legs, you know she has gone from character to set dressing.             That left me with action. The villains in this tripe-fest are appropriately cartoony, but disappointingly all black as well. Big Bunny (Kevin Hart) and his two sidekicks (Brian Hooks and Malcolm-Jamal Warner) are the epitome of every rap or reggae stereotype committed to film. They, of course, want the treasure themselves and aren’t afraid to kill people to get it. They suck at killing anyone but themselves, however, but that’s not the point. We should fear their villainy because they are black, or so it would seem. They are after the treasure because they are greedy bastards, and, well, no that’s the only reason. It turns into a race to see who can find the treasure first, except that Finnegan and Tess are the only ones following clues or doing anything really, come to think of it. The bad guys show up from time to time and fail to kill the protagonists and, in the end, everyone lives happily ever after.             Avoid the Fool’s Gold until you can rent it cheap. Even at “Early Bird” pricing, I felt like I wasted my time and money. Now, if Douglas, Turner, and DeVito get back together, maybe they can show us how to do this kind of film right again, but until then, I’m going to go back to dreading the inevitable release of something with the words “Crystal Skull” in the title.