Fool’s Gold Is Better Than What I Expected

I remember laughing at the previews for Fool’s Gold far before it came out on DVD. The entire premise for the movie, or the premise portrayed in the previews, seemed so lame. With that in mind it probably doesn’t make much since that I actually added Fool’s Gold to my Netflix queue, but I was pretty disappointed when I found this flick in my mailbox today… Note to self, check Netflix queue after I finish this review.

I can’t explain why I added this movie to that queue, but none the less I inevitable watched it since it was in the house and I wasn’t doing anything terribly important.

About The Movie
In Fool’s Gold we meet Matthew McConaughey’s character Benjamin Finnegan. We join him and a friend, Alfonz (Ewen Bremner) as they filter through the sea bottom in search for treasure. It is during this process that we see the piece of junk generator they are using. The generator is blowing off sparks and jumping around on the deck of the boat. Eventually the thing falls off of the boat into the water, but not before it catches one single piece of paper on fire. It doesn’t take long before the generator and the entire boat join the two mean at the shallow sea floor. In the murky, disturbed waters Benjamin is lucky to find one remnant of the ship wreck he is looking for.

The plot thickens a bit when the two men are taken to Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart). Bigg Bunny is somewhat of the “thug” of the Caribbean area where the two men are working and Benjamin appears to have a ‘banking’ history with Bigg Bunny. Benjamin, is not in too good of standing Mr. Bunny…

Now on the other side of the story we have Tess Finnegan (Kate Hudson). Tess is working on a yacht for the prestigious and outrageously rich Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland), as a stewardess. It is at this time that we realize that Tess is Benjamin’s wife, but she is planning on divorcing him and Nigel is helping her out by making it possible for her to make a stop in the Keys of Florida so the court can grant her, her divorce.

At the divorce proceedings Tess is granted everything due to Benjamin’s absence, but he does manage to show up after the proceedings are over. On the way out of the courthouse Ben talks to Tess about the remnant he found, but she eventually gets him to back off and she heads back to the yacht where she is working, but she still has the nagging feeling that the ‘treasure’ the all seek is possible to find.

Lucky enough for her, Benjamin finds his way to the boat after he hears about the owner of the boat Nigel and his money. Not because Tess works there, but because he believes he may be able to talk this auspiciously rich man into helping him search for the treasure.

Tess is a bit shocked when she finds her ex-husband on the boat, but they quickly come together to tell the story of the lost treasure to Nigel. Of course, the story draws him in and they all work together to find the treasure, but it doesn’t take long for them to find out they have a little competition.

My Thoughts
First off I was sure this was sappy “love story” type movie when I first saw the previews. In reality, the movie does have some pretty serious action scenes. With that difference, the movie was better than what I expected, but in an overall sense it still didn’t work well. The action scenes were fun to watch and I found myself keenly interested in the story of the ship-wreck and how they came to find it.

The other storylines in the film where somewhat absurd. The most laughable is the character Bigg Bunny. They have this character set-up like he is the king of the island. In fact he owns the island, but honestly I can’t expect much out of any character in the film that goes my the name “Bigg Bunny”…

Of course there is a bit of romance in the film, but it is pretty short lived and the outcome is very predictable. Thankfully the main plot was more about the finding of the treasure rather than Tess and Benjamin’s relationship.

The acting was interesting, for the most part the actors seemed to pull of their performances, it was the storyline that really ruined this film. I wasn’t impressed with the character Gemma Honeycutt (Alexis Dziena). This character was ‘flaky’ in the sense that she had, had everything handed to her on a silver platter and she obviously was clueless about many things, unfortunately the ditzy-dumb attempts where overdone and the character seemed extremely flat.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner also makes an appearance on this film and does a pretty good job with his character, Cordell, who is an assistant to Bigg Bunny.

Overall I felt this film was a bit of a wash-up. The “treasure hunting” adventure in itself was okay, but the coordinating plots of the characters just absolutely fell flat.