Foolish Watching (Fool's Gold (DVD))

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	Fool's Gold (DVD)
Date:	12/01/09 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: McConaughey gets his top off

Disadvantages: Everything else is awful

I loved "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" , I thought it was really funny, it had an interesting story and it had a great cast - I just love Matthew McConaughey and his chemistry with Kate Hudson was just brilliant.

So when I saw "Fools Gold" in my housemates DVD collection, I just had to give it a go. Good Sunday night viewing, easy watching a few laughs, good rom com with lots of chemistry with Kate Hudson and Matthew Mc.C. Right?

Wrong.

The Story
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Matthew plays Benjamin Finnegan, a sea treasure hunter. At the beginning of the film we see as he escapes death from a group of thugs whom he owes money. Kate plays Tess, the soon to be ex wife of Benjamin. They both have a love for the water, history and treasure hunting. After their divorce, they find themselves both on a luxury boat owned by multimillionaire, Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland)

The two of them end up going on a last treasure hunt along with Honeycutt and his ditzy daughter to uncover the mystery of the 18th Century Queens Dowry.

Will they find it before Benjamin's nemesis do? Will Tess and Benjamin rekindle their romance? Do we really care??!

My Thoughts
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I cannot begin to explain just how awful I thought this film was, but Ill certainly try.

The first 45 minutes of the film is just "setting the scene", nothing much happens at all except that the characters are set up. It was far too long winded and I was in serious danger of passing out through boredom.
To top this off, there is a rather long episode (which I admit was probably necessary) where Finnegan and Tess tell the story of the Queen's Dowry to the Multimillionaire that is about to finance their adventure. It was dull, dull dull. I think that 45 minutes just to set up the characters and the premise of the story is a bit much. It wasn't exactly taxing on the brain to watch but it certainly wasn't interesting either.

Secondly, not once did I find any humour to this film, there were no funny moments that I can recall, I did not laugh and I did not crack a smile. I frowned a couple of times at the awful and predictable attempts at humour which mainly came from Tess' boss' daughter, Gemma but that was it. It was cheesy, predictable - and sometimes this works in these films - but there was nothing. Nothing at all that was truly funny about this film. Actually, I take that back. There is a rather unusual and disturbing performance played by the (usually) very good actor, Ray Winstone who has THE most horrendous American accent ever heard.

Lastly, and this was most disappointing of all, was the chemistry between Hudson and McConaughey. It was like they were just going through the motions and I in turn felt nothing for them. I'm not sure what happened in their personal lives/acting since the making of "How to lose A Guy" but it seems they had lost any spark there was between them. I really couldn't care less if they managed to rekindle their marriage or if Hudsons character jumped off the boat to be eaten by sharks whilst McConaughey runs off with the millionaires daughter.

The ending of the film sees them involved in lots more action, you would think this would be the point where things start to get interesting, but still, I felt nothing, it was all so predictable, bad guys chasing the good guys, the good guys getting out of sticky situations right at the last minute, there was nothing interesting there at all and my heart certainly wasn't racing with excitement.
Ray Winstone's character makes more of an appearnce in these scenes, so there is more smirks at his appalling accent which helped me get through the final scenes but thats it.

I would have turned the film off after the first 45 minutes, but as I knew I would end up reviewing it (so awful, I just had to!) I watched, completely bored and without even cracking a smile to the end.

One good thing about this - McConaughey has his top off during his second scene on screen. This is about 10 minutes in, so watch til there, then switch off I say.

A complete waste of time overall, admittedly there are some pretty settings (there was something going on behind McConaughey and his beautiful chest anyway) but other than that, appalling acting, ridiculous chase scenes and absoloutely zilch chemistry from the leading actors.

Summary: Its best not to bother!