It was not a joke when a Hollywood studio threw Nicolas Cage like an emo angel who risks his wings to save Meg Ryan, a mortal with dark thoughts and big hair. But Aziz Ansari had to smile when he chose Keanu Reeves to play a similar character, an angel named Gabriel who goes beyond his functions with a “lost soul”, in his first feature film, “Good Fortune”. It is a fun idea that the public of Gen-Z or not knows “City of Angels”, the remake of the late 90s of “Wings of Desire”, or the sooner “Menking Trading Places” by John Landis.
In what is equivalent to a slightly ironic but especially sincere tribute to studio films at high concept at the end of the 20th century (the comedy of body television in particular), Ansari plays Arj, a worker in economics with a naturally exasperated vision of life in Los Angeles. Do shopping for the rich on Taskrabbit, he barely wins enough to eat, and does not have self -confidence to flirt with Elena (Keke Palmer), a tremendously idealistic colleague in his second job in Home Depot style.
Arj wonders why he went to university when he spends most of the nights sleeping in his beaten car, which ends up being towed for too many unpaid parking tickets. For Gabriel, the many humiliations of ARJ add up to someone who needs his help. And in addition, Gabriel is annoyed by his low -ranking angels tasks, which is equivalent to preventing Angelenos from sending SMS and driving (he does not realize how many lives he saves).
The coach of the Angels, the boss of Gabriel (Sandra Oh) warns him that he has no intervention, but Gabriel is not so brilliant – Reeves plays the character with the same empty look that he brought to “Bill and Ted’s excellent Adventure” all these years ago – and appears in Arj anyway. (No one else can see him.) When Arj does not seem to be delighted by brief visions of what his life has in store, Gabriel temporarily lets him exchange places with Jeff (Seth Rogen), a rich technology brother whom he had met a few days earlier.
There is only one problem: Arj does not want to go back. Would you like to, if you were offered the choice between scratching (like so many these days) and private sauna planning games from your Hollywood Hills manor?
It is funny that Gabriel did not plan this problem – that ARJ does not agree “how much a life of wealth and success is really superficial” – and funnier when you see the incredulous expression of Gabriel. No doubt that Reeves, who made cameras of oneself in everything, of “Toy Story 4” to “always being my perhaps” recently, is the MVP of this film. The safest sign of the intelligence of the star of Good-Sport is his willingness that he can play a “dum-dum”.
Ansari understands that the whole angel was cheesy when Warren Beatty and John Travolta tried him (in “Heaven Can Wait” and “Michael” respectively), but uses it as an “SNL” sketch could, as shortcut for the point that he really wants to make contemporary criticism, as the prospect of the perspective of the contemporary capital, as the perspective of the perspective of the contemporary class. Contemporary, the perspective of the perspective of the contemporary class, the capital, the contemporary capital, the prospect of the perspective of the clear endripe meets. The actor may not be Frank Capra of this generation, but it is always pleasant to see a celebrity that recognizes what normal people live and use its platform to remedy it (at La Cheech Marin “Born in East la”).
The rules of the way Arj and Jeff change their place, and what it takes to go back, is a kind of target in motion in “Good Fortune”, which gives the character of Rogen an intensive course of Ebenezer Scrooge in the way of being a better billionaire by forcing him to work for his own food delivery application. But after having made the joke that Arj likes to be rich, the scenario of Ansari never really presents a convincing reason why this selfish guy would return to the way things were previously – unless you have the love interest of the Union of Palmer, one of the texts and accidents of the driver Gabriel was supposed to prevent (one of the many conspiracy holes).
The film presents a strange mixture of actor styles, Rogen’s performance appropriately (his character is a privilege personified, at the beginning, then returned later because he is forced to enter his own house) to the strangely conscious character of Ansari, who looks uncomfortable at the camera, whether ARJ is rich or poor. And then there is a fun vision of Reeves de Gabriel, which begins to relax once it is taken from angel and forced to obtain a dishwasher work on earth.
Gabriel discovers the little things that the others hold for acquired – namely, cigarettes, dance and “chicken nongies” – but these are the street tacos that will miss the most if it recovers its wings. Even if it is quite obvious where “good fortune” is heading, Ansari manages to surprise how he gets there. Like his character, the scriptwriter-director-producer-producer seems to juggle too many jobs here, and yet it is this link even with overworked and subcompanied Americans that makes his film so well for this moment.
