Good Fortune (United States, 2025)

Hey, we’re all sleep-deprived, right? The day-to-day grind makes it impossible to get a solid seven or eight hours of sleep at night. So we can be thankful for movies like Good Fortune—opportunities to snooze away in a temperature-controlled environment without anyone being the wiser. Because really, why would anyone actually want to watch this? And is it even reasonable to call it a “film”? In truth, this feels more like a half-baked comedy sketch stretched far beyond its breaking point—until even the last traces of humor have leaked out like the gooey innards of a Stretch Armstrong toy that’s been tortured by a sadistic kid.

Is Aziz Ansari funny? Matter of opinion. I’m not going to litigate his entire career here, but when it comes to this project—for which he wears three hats (actor, director, writer)—the jury’s not out. The verdict is guilty on all counts. The direction is TV-sitcom pedestrian. The writing is juvenile and rarely amusing. And his acting is stiff and self-conscious. He also manages the seemingly impossible: taking a diverse cast featuring himself, Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh, and Keke Palmer and crafting a movie that functions as the best sleep aid this side of a melatonin gummy.

Halfway through, as I was struggling to stay awake (good thing for that cup of coffee I had earlier), I kept wondering what the point was. Clearly, it’s aiming for comedy—the tone is offbeat, the situations absurd, and nothing is meant to be taken seriously—but where’s the actual humor? Sure, it’s mildly amusing when Keanu Reeves riffs about the diminutive size of his… wings. But then the movie pivots to a clumsy attempt at social commentary, full of heavy-handed sermons about the plight of hard-working Americans living paycheck to paycheck and how “the system” has failed them. It’s a noble sentiment delivered with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, leaving me half-expecting Michael Moore to pop out from behind a potted plant.

The story focuses (to the extent that “focus” even applies to something this disjointed) on three characters: Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), a bargain-basement angel who botches an attempt to teach one of the “have-nots” to appreciate what he has; Arj (Aziz Ansari), that “have-not,” whose life reads like the chorus of a country song (broke, homeless, hopeless); and Jeff (Seth Rogen), the wealthy foil whose excess becomes Arj’s Holy Grail. When Gabriel—whose usual job is preventing deaths-by-texting—tries to cure Arj’s suicidal streak, he lets Arj and Jeff switch lives. But when Arj decides he likes the upgrade, Gabriel’s boss, Martha (Sandra Oh), fires him. Meanwhile, Arj discovers that money can buy a lot of things but maybe not the affections of Elena (Keke Palmer), the idealistic Big Box employee trying to unionize her coworkers.

Ansari’s list of “inspirations” stretches far and wide, borrowing from nearly every angel movie ever made (Heaven Can Wait, It’s a Wonderful Life), with a hefty side of Trading Places. Somehow, nothing gels. There’s no development beyond the initial gimmick, and the absence of character depth or audience identification becomes fatal. It’s a rare comedy that succeeds without at least one semi-developed human being in it.

Stylistically, the film feels like a ‘90s direct-to-video release. It never resembles an actual movie—more like something Ansari cobbled together with a few famous friends and then dared someone to distribute. It looks cheap, plays cheap, and might be the tamest R-rated film of the year. As if terrified of getting a PG-13 from the MPA, Ansari throws in random profanity to inflate the “adult content.” That’s just one item on a list of countless problems.

Attend Good Fortune for one thing only: the chance to nap. Nothing on-screen will threaten to keep you awake—and even if there are other people in the theater, you don’t have to worry about their nonexistent laughter waking you up.

Good Fortune (United States, 2025)