A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Fool's Gold

Date Viewed: 2/14/08

Details:

Matthew McConaughey

Kate Hudson

Donald Sutherland

Alexis Dziena

Ray Winstone

Director: Andy Tennant

Score: 1/2

The Review: A cryptic maritime mystery based on obscure historical trivia, hidden undersea treasure, a highly competitive and murderous hunt, adventure on the high seas -- this reeks of Dirk Pitt (not really much of a stretch, considering McConaughey's prior experience in Sahara), only not as intelligent or well-crafted. And that's saying something.

Ben Finnegan (McConaughey) is an attractive rogue with a taste for treasure salving, and a golden tongue with which to enlist backers to provide funds. Only he does tend to get way in over his head (luckily, he can hold his breath for a very long time), and he's not the brightest bulb in the pack. But he did convince Tess (Hudson) to marry him and tromp around the world looking for historical archives documenting the last trip of the Spanish treasure ship Aurelia. Now they're on hard times, deeply in debt, stranded in the Bahamas, she's homesick for Chicago and divorcing him. So who shows up but a multi-millionaire (Sutherland) and his spoiled brat daughter (Dziena), not to say some competitors searching for the same treasure (Winstone), and the fun begins.

It does sound like fun, and it is, to some extent. It also sounds exciting, but it's mostly dumb -- in that they're all playing really dumb characters, except Tess, whose otherwise sound thinking is merely addled by sex. Sutherland is a total waste here, slumming for god knows what reason, and the bimbo playing his daughter is quite effective, as a bimbo. But Gold drafts both McConaughey and Hudson into superficially charismatic roles -- able to sell treasure salvage to a naive listener. At least their pitch sounded good to me!

So it's not a total loss, hence the slightly positive score. McConaughey and Hudson do have some chemistry, the plot's history is intriguing (bogus, of course, but who cares?!), and there are some lines of dialog worth remembering. It's not high art, but little is these days.

Attractively filmed off Queensland (Australia) & Eleuthera (Bahamas).

(16-Feb-08)

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