Good Fortune (15)

Low-ranking angel Gabriel hopes to earn promotion from Texting And Driving to more exciting divisions like Avalanches or Tsunamis. He becomes fixated on nice guy Arj, who fulfils odd jobs for the Task Sergeant app, and oversteps his remit by revealing himself to a mortal. After self-obsessed venture capitalist Jeff hires Arj as a personal assistant and almost as quickly fires him, Gabriel intervenes and orchestrates a magical body swap so Arj and Jeff experience each other's lives.

LondonNet Film Review

Good Fortune (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Imagine if Keanu Reeves’ endearingly dim-witted hero from the Bill And Ted movies ascended to heaven and was granted licence to return to Earth as a low-ranking angel in charge of preventing driving accidents. That’s the creative kernel of writer, director and actor Aziz Ansari’s inconsistent yet sweetly charming comedy, which manifests the unholy union of Wim Wenders’ angelic meditation on life, Wings Of Desire, and the life-swap lark, Trading Places…

Reeves exudes childlike innocence as the angel who oversees Texting And Driving – a monotonous yet worthwhile assignment, which involves sitting unseen on the back seats of cars and placing his hand on a driver’s shoulder at the precise moment they need to look up from their phone and hit the brakes to avoid a collision. In one of the simplest and most delightful scenes from Good Fortune, Reeves’s celestial commiserates being cast out from heaven with his first fast food meal, emitting increasingly effusive woahs as he samples a beefburger, chocolate milkshake and “chicken nuggies”. His unselfconscious performance is the undeniable highlight of Anzari’s uneven picture, which has a hit-and-miss script that has the potential to be far funnier than what ends up on screen.

Low-ranking angel Gabriel (Reeves) hopes to earn promotion from Texting And Driving to more exciting divisions like Avalanches or Tsunamis, and maybe, one day, achieve the holy grail of shepherding Lost Souls back from the abyss. He becomes fixated on nice guy Arj (Ansari), who fulfils odd jobs for the Task Sergeant app to keep his head above water. Convinced Arj is a lost soul, Gabriel oversteps the remit agreed by his angel supervisor (Sandra Oh) and reveals himself to Arj. “You’re telling me I have a budget guardian angel?” snarks the mortal, once he learns of Gabriel’s modest earthbound remit.

After self-obsessed venture capitalist Jeff (Seth Rogen) hires Arj as a personal assistant and almost as quickly fires him, Gabriel intervenes and orchestrates a magical body swap so Arj and Jeff experience each other’s lives and hopefully nurture sympathy and understanding. Instead, Arj embraces his newfound unlimited spending power and Gabriel loses his wings. He is condemned to live among us, washing dishes and eating tacos until Arj repents. “I used to be a celestial being and now I’m a chain smoker,” laments Gabriel.

Good Fortune will require divine intervention to wholeheartedly charm audiences. Uproarious laughs are sporadic and Anzari bypasses deep character development and rich storytelling to engineer an unabashedly wholesome resolution akin to It’s A Wonderful Life. A romantic subplot between Arj and a hardware warehouse co-worker (Keke Palmer) is casually grafted onto the flimsy main narrative to illustrate how money can buy anything, except another person’s affections. Or in this case, a sharper script.

– Kim Hu