‘Good Fortune’: Pretty likeable

Aziz Ansari’s modern mashup of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ & ‘Trading Places’, in which he also writes, stars and directs, is a fairly likeable entertainer. In this film, Keanu Reeves plays a well-meaning low-level angel, Gabriel, who tries to work his magic into the lives of a struggling gig worker and a wealthy capitalist. The movie tries to be a commentary on the economic situation prevalent today, but the writing feels a little too half-baked to achieve that objective with any modicum of success.

Reeves as Gabriel, with a scraggly beard and unkempt hair, has an undersized pair of wings and wears a shabby raincoat, while perched atop LA’s Griffith Observatory. Gabriel, whose assignment is “texting and driving”, basically prevents collisions if someone is texting while driving. It’s a job like any other and he needs to perform well in order to climb up the hierarchy.

Martha (Sandra Oh), his superior, encourages him to go for it, saying, “To save a lost soul, you first have to find a lost soul.”

He is certainly itching to do more than his celestial existence allows. So, it’s a given that he would be interested in Arj (Ansari), a documentary editor with a desire to make his own films, who is now marking time as a gig worker struggling with multiple jobs.

Arj delivers food, does odd tasks like standing in line to pick up stuff, besides working at Hardware Heaven. When Arj gets kicked out of a task app job for venture capitalist Jeff (Seth Rogen), Gabriel, worried that he might take his own life, decides to meddle. He puts Arj in Jeff’s place for a week just to show him that money has its own troubles, but when his time is up, Arj refuses to go back to his old life.

In an interview, Seth Rogen described it as an “empathy machine”, and why not? ‘Good Fortune’ is a comedy driven by empathy. All main characters get to live and understand life different from theirs. Gabriel gets to be human for a short while; Jeff, who was born with a silver spoon, experiences the unstable life of a gig worker, and Arj, of course, gets to be rich and demanding.

Ansari’s screenplay may seem a bit rushed with the climax being stage-managed, but the four characters and the stars playing them are imminently likeable. Ansari’s act is comic.

Keke Palmer, who plays Elena, a co-worker at Hardware Heaven, is charming and magnetic, but there’s not much chemistry between her and Arj. Rogen eases into both roles — as a rich guy and a poor one — with hilarious outcomes. Reeves, in a role befitting his public image, does angelic, humble and down-to-earth to great effect. Only Sandra Oh doesn’t have much to do.

The drastic character arcs allow the actors to perform well… but the way these get discarded for a rushed finale puts a dampener on the experience. The film has its moments but the attempt to patch in the end act causes a bit of a rupture.

While the messaging and the homage to the feel-good movies of the past is commendable, the social commentary fails to stir. This is typical escapist entertainment for the ‘haves’; the ‘strugglers’ may not find it all that funny. Even so, the overall experience is close to heartening.