Fool’s Gold
* 1/2
Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson,
Donald Sutherland, Alexis Dziena
Directed by Andy Tennant
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday
A murderous rap star-loan shark using his incompetent cronies to recoup his investment. An overly generous multimillionaire trying to connect with his tabloid-fodder daughter. A newly divorced pair of treasure hunters who give new meaning to the words “sexual history.” What do they have in common? Not as much as Fool’s Gold director Andy Tennant would like you to believe.
Tennant expects audiences to simply accept that this motley crew of characters might actually come together in pursuit of an 18th-century sunken treasure. But Fool’s Gold’s players are more caricatures than characters; only Hudson manages to infuse the otherwise absurd film with a hint of believability and comedy, at times channeling mother Goldie Hawn’s lovable, big-eyed buffoonery.
Fans of previous McConaughey-Hudson collaboration How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days will miss the couple’s charm and chemistry. Any comical romance is lost in the confusing hunt. In the end, Fool’s Gold delivers too many fools and too little comedy gold.
–Tasha Chemplavil