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Fool's Gold
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: February 11, 2007

Is there any actor more insufferable than Matthew McConaughey? I’m wracking my brains, but can’t think of one. Granted, McConaughey’s performance in Dazed and Confused is a classic, but that was a long time ago, when he was so healthily anonymous. Since then, as fame has Heisenberged the humanity right out of him, he’s developed an acting style that makes Tom Cruise look like a master of understatement. Indeed, McConaughey’s self-adoration has become so conscious and visible an entity, it probably has its own driver’s license and social security number. One can imagine the award speech prepared in his head: “I like me! I really like me!”

His latest film, Fool’s Gold, can at least be credited with billing itself properly; it’s about a bunch of fools looking for gold. McConaughey is teamed with Kate Hudson, whose career may be redeemable yet, but who has certainly bogged down in failed potential after her timeless performance as Penny Lane in Almost Famous. Perhaps Hudson is better off playing an underestimated bimbo than an overestimated bimbo. In Fool’s Gold the screenwriters have surrounded her with characters who lack even two synapses to rub together, apparently so Donald Sutherland can convince her, and the audience, that she is some kind of under-utilized genius. All I can say is, this character is no Penny Lane.

Fool’s Gold no doubt fancies itself a “Romantic Adventure Comedy.” McConaughey and Hudson play a couple of sexually compatible but otherwise mis-matched deep-sea treasure hunters, so there’s your romance and there’s your adventure. As for the comedy, it is of the type that relies heavily on slapstick that in real life would lead to fractured skulls, assault charges, lawsuits, jail time, and hopefully some soul-searching on the part of the assailant—all of it played out without consequence and set to incongruously enlightened reggae classics. The movie is also held together by an insistence that its characters refuse to state honest truths about even the simplest things. Thus, for our movie ticket, we are treated to the wonder of people crippled by impulsive hostility and deceitfulness, as they abuse each other for two hours and learn nothing. Granted you could stay at home and get the same thing for free watching Jerry Springer, but in Fool’s Gold the characters also repeatedly cheat death, which creates a sense of mounting disappointment that’s difficult to reproduce on reality TV.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the Hollywood writers' strike should end just prior to this film’s release? The producers certainly could have leveraged this thing against the writers if they had just held out for another week. Though most of America seemed to rally around the writers, Fool’s Gold is exactly the kind of film that makes you wonder if maybe the whole town shouldn’t be shut down for good. I’m exaggerating, of course. I love the movies—superficial ones too. Indeed, sometimes a bad film is just what the doctor ordered. But when movies willfully encourage the blindest, most destructive human behaviors, and set it all to whimsical music, it really is a shameful misuse of a treasured national resource. And I don’t mean Matthew McConaughey.

Copyright © 2008 Theo Michelfeld