Fool's Gold

Release Date: February 8, 2008


Movie of the Day for Sunday, September 23, 2007
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People Magazine's top bachelor takes on another conquest.

On the Big Board
Position Staff In Brief
21/21 Jason Lee It's not bad, but it's not very good either.
24/98 David Mumpower I am shocked by how much I enjoyed this movie. It's got the spirit of Romancing the Stone even if it lacks the same story or acting talent.
37/196 Max Braden This isn't an unenjoyable way to spend an evening: beautiful environs, hot bods, and treasure.

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Oh, the genre of the chick-flick. It’s the scourge of the all-American movie-going man: To suffer through 90 minutes of touchy-feely emotions and lame jokes when he could be watching the latest action-packed blood-fest just two theaters down is tragic. Since there will always be a demand from women to see something other than explosions, there will be work for men like director Andy Tennant.

In Fool’s Gold, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are together again (their other project was How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, a product of the aforementioned genre), this time as a couple of treasure hunters whose marriage breaks down after a long, unsuccessful hunt for booty (sounds like the last few months of my life). However, their relationship (and the weak plotline) gets a shot in the arm after they happen upon evidence that may lead them to the fortune they’ve been seeking their whole lives. Lame jokes will almost certainly ensue.

Though Andy Tennant did not bring us How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, he did find profitability in this genre with Sweet Home Alabama, which took in $138 million, and most recently the Will Smith smash Hitch which took us for $177 million. To anyone who thinks that Hitch was not a chick-flick, I dare you to level the number of relationship jokes to the number of explosions and just try to stand by your assumption.

Since treasure is a big thing recently (The Pirates films, the National Treasure sequel, etc.), Fool’s Gold is doing something that films of its kind are guilty of time and again: Leeching off the popularity of others when they just don’t have any original ideas of their own. And that doesn't even take into account the apparent marketing scheme of getting Matt and Kate back together (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days did $105 million). Though I’d love to never hear of a film of this sort come to fruition again, the fact is it will likely be profitable enough to keep Kate Hudson in leading roles until her looks run out and she is relegated to playing the promiscuous grandmother character. (Bart Lasater/BOP)


Vital statistics for Fool's Gold
Main Cast Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson
Supporting Cast Donald Sutherland, Ewan Bremner, Roger Sciberras
Director Andy Tennant
Screenwriter John Claflin, Kenneth Lonergan, Rick Parks, Daniel Zelman
Distributor Warner Bros.
Talent in red has entry in The Big Picture


     


 
 

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