Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Mathew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland,
Alexis Dziena, Ewen Bremner, Ray Winstone, Kevin Hart,
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Written by John Claflin, Daniel Zelman & Andy Tennant
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13
Runtime 113 minutes
Directed by Andy Tennant
How much do you reckon Matthew McConaughey gets per film? It's got to be a few million dollars, right? Amazing really. All that cash and yet he still won't buy a shirt...
McConaughey, perhaps the only actor with a built in yes-nudity clause, is in standard topless form in Fool's Gold, a glossy slice of dumb that sees him team up again with Kate Hudson. These two actually have great chemistry; they're no Powell and Loy, but they spark neatly off each other and make a believable couple. What they don't have though is any ability to pick a script and, while Fool's Gold doesn't reek as badly as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, this so-so rom-com / so-so treasure hunt hybrid doesn't do anything of note for either genre.
McConaughey plays Ben "Finn" Finnegan, a laidback surfer type turned treasure hunter. He and his wife Tess (Hudson) are obsessed with finding the Queen's Dowry, a priceless haul of Spanish treasure lost somewhere around the Caribbean in the 18th century. Finn and Tess have spent their married life seeking clues to its resting place. Now Finn has a major breakthrough — a piece of plate from the treasure ship — but it's too late: his discovery comes on the morning of his divorce.
Tess has had enough of life with a debt-ridden, generally aimless beach bum. Sure the chemistry was good and the sex — as they mention at alarmingly regular intervals — was amazing but she's now working for billionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Sutherland), running his huge yacht, and generally rebuilding her life... but along comes Finn again, all drawling charm, dangling the plate like a carrot on a stick, and the two — plus Nigel and his socialite daughter Gemma (Dziena) — are on a race to find the haul before Finn's former backer, gangster rapper Bigg Bunny (Hart) can beat them to it.
At the very least, Fool's Gold should be moderately exciting but everything about it feels half-cocked, from the balance of the two genres, to the inevitability of Finn and Tess reuniting, via the clichés of the characters (surfer dude, uptight beauty, bimbo heiress, clumsy henchmen, etc). The race for the treasure is also disappointingly low-key. There are no National Treasure-type international shenanigans here — not necessarily a bad thing, of course — but the most exciting developments here involve, er, sailing around the other side of the island and climbing a hill and all, squeezed into the final 40 minutes or so after an overlong set-up. A disappointing mish-mash that will leave you thinking the Fool's Gold of the title is actually a not-so-subtle reference to the box-office takings.