Fool’s Gold
Romantic love comedies are among my favorites. However, a combination of adventure, romance and comedy is something unique, and that is probably the freshness that the new movie of Andrew Tennant, Fool’s Gold, brings to its viewers.
Fool’s Gold is produced by Wink Mordaunt, James R. Dyer (II) and Jon Klane and stars Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Roger Sciberras, Donald Sutherland and Ewen Bremner. The movie tells the life story of a good-natured, surf bum-turned-treasure hunter, Ben “Finn” Finnegan, who is obsessed with finding the legendary 18th century Queen’s Dowry–40 chests of exotic treasure that was lost at sea in 1715.
Finnegan sinks everything he has; including his marriage to Tess Finnegan and his more-rusty-than-trusty salvage boat, “Booty Calls” for the goal to find the treasure. However, at the end of the movie, he reunites with Tess to share their lives and fortune together.
The Boston Globe reports that Fool’s Gold plays like a product that began life as one thing in the Hollywood cannery and wound up something else.
It’s full of plastic sentiment, chases, buffoonery, and dull lewdness, not to mention the macho gay couple stuck cooking the meals on Nigel’s boat. Seventy years ago they would have been platonic black dudes. Sometimes progress stinks.
According to the New York Times, for a time the movie holds out a vague promise of romantic farce, since it seems possible that either Gemma or her dad, or perhaps both, might become an obstacle to Tess and Finn’s inevitable reconciliation.
And so the prospect of fireworks between Finn and Tess is quickly dampened, and the movie turns into a dull, noisy pursuit of old Spanish coins, aided by maps and letters and enough pseudohistorical explanation to round out the next episode in the “National Treasure” franchise. Will Finn and Tess find the treasure before the bad guys? Will they put aside their differences and rekindle their love? Yes to both questions! I haven’t spoiled anything, by the way. But perhaps I’ve saved you some trouble.
Before the movie is released, here is its official trailer.