Directed By Charlie Day

Starring – Charlie Day, Ray Liotta, Jason Sudeikis

The Plot – a satirical comedy following a down-on-his-luck publicist (Ken Jeong), who gets his lucky break when he discovers a man recently released from a mental health facility (Day) looks just like a method actor who refuses to leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer (Liotta), Ken helps the man become a huge star, even marrying his beautiful leading lady (Kate Beckinsale). Their adventures lead them to cross paths with drunken costars (Adrien Brody), irreverent unhoused action heroes (Common), unpredictable directors (Jason Sudeikis), a super-agent (Edie Falco), and power-mad moguls (John Malkovich).

Rated R for adult language, some drug use and sexual content

Fool’s Paradise | Official Trailer | In Theaters May 12 – YouTube

POSITIVES

For Day’s directorial debut, he conjures a surreal satirical dissection on the ins and outs of Hollywood that feels every bit unapologetic in depiction as it does revealing in extent of its insightful social commentary. This certainly made “Fool’s Paradise” feel like a completely different film than the one that was essentially advertised, but not without its own endearing merits, primarily Day’s exaggerated emphasis on agents, directors, and the overwhelming number of superhero properties with computer-generated influence dominating the forefront of their big budget presentations. The gags themselves aren’t necessarily difficult to distinguish, nor primarily one-dimensional in the observations they’re typically able to garner, proving that “Fool’s Paradise” has plenty to say about the state of cinematic relations in 2023, with a physical manifestation of its unshakeable grip being felt within the confines of a simple-minded protagonist, which makes the lunacy transpire all the more unrelenting with someone who rightfully can’t defend himself. On the subject of Day’s unorthodox portrayal, he effortlessly channels the essence of silent film actors like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, who used their bold facial registries to convey the magnitude of their internal feelings. Day does so with an integral balance of child-like innocence and appalling audacity that spawns seamlessly as the reflection of the audience experiencing the mayhem by living through him, in turn earning his character all of the empathy necessary to invest in his inescapable plight. Day also calls on pretty much every A-lister who he knows to make spirited cameos throughout, with Adrien Brody, John Malkovich and even rapper Common being among my favorites to help elicit a big screen captivity to the engagement that at least helps to maintain your attention when other aspects fall dramatically short, with many of them playing such against type personas that it crafts the rare opportunity to see each of them as what can truly only be defined as unrestrained.

NEGATIVES

The worst comedies can drag so much worse than any other genre, and that’s the case with “Fool’s Paradise”, a film so void of effectively generated laughs that I was able to continuously hear the collective groans from an audience who grew tired of this routine by the end of the film’s first act. This film isn’t just unfunny, it’s downright embarassing, with smothered improvisation and relaxed edits padding out scenes and sequences with the worst kind of snail’s pacing, and material itself that feels a bit too corny to ever effectively trigger honest gut reactions in its audience. The humor is made worse by an abrasively on-the-nose musical score from the typically great Jon Brion, whose work here outlines key moments with instrumentals so obvious and uninspired that they feel practically plucked from a 60’s child cartoon, leaving little to chance in the air of audience interpretation, which can’t garner a second to read before Brion’s intrusions completely eviscerate the subtleties of the intention. Other key hinderances pertained to the spontaneity of the script itself, which often persists without a detectable narrative outlining the extent of the character journey, and Day’s own inexperience behind the lens causing more chaotic freneticism in the visuals and the ensuing visual coherences than I would’ve appreciated. Characters appear then disappear, plot developments are left abandoned by the side of the road, and any kind of characterization in the outlines of the many bold personalities are virtually non-existent throughout, leaving Day’s quiet protagonist without the kind of crutch that could’ve saved him from literally quieting his own comedic firepower, which is a consequence of creativity in itself that continuously underwhelms the dwindled returns with its biggest character unable to audibly convey what he feels with the madness of his on-again, off-again career spike that has us living out the story with a complete stranger. In fact, the experience itself is so weighed down by having to follow Day’s muted Latte and Jeong’s publicist because neither of them are that compelling, with the former being a virtual stranger with a complete lack of exposition for his cause, and the latter being the sleezy, slimy embodiment of ten-percenters everywhere, which the film has chosen to faithfully follow along the way. Not only was I left with a complete lack of investment in either of these characters, but the occasional dramatic turns of the third act felt undeserving and unfulfilled because of how each of them were presented previously, leading to the nagging tonal imbalance that ultimately defined the entirety of the material and corresponding execution.

OVERALL
“Fool’s Paradise” marks an embarrassing directorial debut for Charlie Day, whose narratively flat storytelling and bone-dry comedic density makes for one of the most audaciously frustrating engagements to come from an otherwise royal buffet of assorted talent assembled, on and off screen. Though the bountiful commentary of Hollywood proves that Day has plenty to say about the industry that made him, but nowhere near enough entertainment value to justify or boost a 92-minute feature length experience from, leaving it feeling like a case of fool’s gold for the limitless potential surrounding it.

My Grade: 3/10 or F+