Fool's Gold (PG-13)

It is hard to believe such a talented cast was put together for such a terrible movie.  Besides the two leads, you had Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone, two very good actors (Winstone was fantastic in "The Proposition"), all involved in a movie with no direction and little of interest.  The premise sounds promising:  McConaughey plays Ben Finnegan, a lovable loser type who dreams a finding a fabled Spanish treasure ship that he believes lies somewhere off the Florida Keys.  Tess (Kate Hudson) is his wife, who is looking to finalize their divorce.  Finnegan is in over his head with a local gang and is racing the clock to find the treasure.  What looks to be a fun treasure hunt movie rapidly deteriorates as the movie goes from adventure to romantic comedy to goofy comedy and back and forth, never really settling on any one course.  It is fine for a movie not to tie itself to any one genre, but this one lacks any cohesiveness at all.  Having Kate Hudson in a bikini and Matthew McConaughey shirtless much of the time is still not enough to hold anyone's interest.  In fact, if it was just a still photo of them on the screen for an hour and a half, it would have been more interesting.  There is also a rich girl character (Alexis Dziena) who is such a stereotypical bimbo, it is annoying from her first appearance and continues to annoy every time she appears on screen.  She also spends a lot of her time in a bikini, again probably for eye candy purposes, but she is so young looking, it actually borders on uncomfortable.   When it is over, you just wonder how such a good cast can end up in such a bad movie!  The real "Fool's Gold" here is any money spent on tickets and DVDs.

Grade: D-

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