Official Australian release date: 30/10/25. Viewed: 2/11/25.
Director: Aziz Ansari
Actors: Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer
Genre: Comedy / Drama
Rating: M
‘Good Fortune’ is Ansari’s directorial debut and is a nice little comedy looking at themes of having hope and living your best life. It helps that it has a strong cast, with Arj (Ansari) being helped by the angel Gabriel (Reeves) and getting a job with Jeff (Rogen), and love interest Elena (Palmer). Arj is struggling in LA, and when things don’t go well for him, the ‘texting while driving’ angel decides to help him, and switches Arj’s life with rich tech-bro Jeff’s life to see if the grass is really greener.
It mostly goes as expected, with Arj taking full advantage
of the situation, but then Jeff and Gabriel falling on bad times. It’s pretty similar
to ‘Down To Earth’, ‘Life Stinks’ and ‘Trading Places’. There’s some good
little gags, especially as Gabriel deals with being a human. Seth Rogen is
good, and has some of his usual characteristics, but you can tell he didn’t
write/produce/direct this, as he’s somewhat toned down.
Solid soundtrack (including The Go-Betweens!), only 90min,
and tries to balance between being a superficial comedy and a commentary on
modern life and the haves vs have nots. Probably needed a bit more chemistry
between Ansari and Palmer. There’s definitely some laughs, but it’s not
constant hilarity – which is fine – but just felt like it was a little lacking.
Overall: Good, not great, comedy about our humanity
Gav’s Rating: 3 stars
