Fool's Paradise

I shouldn't have paid attention to this movie as long as I did. The premise was kind of interesting and had the potential for a mid to good plot, but it was just so chaotic without actually going anywhere.

The whole movie was just a bunch of stuff happening to this random guy who has no memories, doesn't talk, and has the intelligence of a 5 year old. Charlie Day's character, Latte Pronto, is essentially Charlie Chaplain's The Tramp. Latte has absolutely nothing going on. He doesn't interact with other characters in meaningful ways, and doesn't seem to have any thoughts, opinions, desires about the things happening around him. The plot literally happens to him and he's just along for the ride.

Which, ok, if you're gonna have an entirely blank character, then at least make the plot interesting. But the plot is not interesting. Charlie Day goes from the mental hospital to the streets of LA, then a director picks him up cause he's a dead ringer for his problematic lead, then he gets famous in a very "Step 1. Hit the streets of LA, Step 2. Become famous celebrity" kind of way. And that's essentially how the entire movie goes. He gets married, divorced, loses everything in such quick succession that I almost got whiplash.

This movie just needed something more substantial than it gave. Charlie Day's character was the perfect setup for a self discovery plot line, where he finds out who he is and/or who he wants to be through his experiences. I mean they could have had a moment at the end where he finally talks, and that would have been pretty cool. But the movie ends, and nobody important learns anything important, and nothing was accomplished, and also I didn't laugh once. Actually I did get some cleaning done between confused glances at my TV, so one thing was accomplished I guess.

This film is hard to watch for all the wrong reasons. The slow pace and general unfunniness represent a missed opportunity of such an amazing cast. If Charlie D. Is identifying as Charlie C. These day, he just needs to stop it. If Day put this project on hold to deliver this past season of Philadelphia, he has really just lost his way, and needs to surround himself with some new/fresh talent. Day's recent work (the past 5 years) is formulaic, as usual, but without the charm of his characters as their younger selves. The world seems to be maturing around Day, who struggles increasingly to make audiences laugh.

This was like a very long, 98 minutes long and dragged out failed SNL sketch. I'm a fan of Charlie Day and he's a great comedian, but putting yourself in a funny film and choosing not to use your comedic trademark funny voice is what failed this film. And that's too bad, as it started out good, not laugh out loud good, but constant smiling and entertaining good. But you can only go so far on silent charm, and can only take so much satirical un-funny comedy. It was great to see the lovely Kate Beckinsale, and Jeong was his usual blast as well, and it was also great to see the late Ray Liotta doing his thing in what is probably the last film he made, but it's too bad this film was more of a flop than it was fun. The story was mostly long dragged out and incoherent nonsense that lacked any good comedy or sharp satire. It's a generous 4/10 for all the stars that I'm sure mostly donated their time for this mess.

I saw this because I liked the story, from what I gathered from the trailer. I am also a big fan of Charlie Day. I think the concept is great. A virtual blank slate, adopted by Hollywood, manipulated into benefiting their own needs, and everyone projects their own feelings onto him. I think the execution left quite a bit to be desired though. There was so much more that they could have explored, but it was a bit too silly and nonsensical for its own good. It didn't really go anywhere either. It was more of a "bunch of stuff happens" type of movie, than one with a meaningful narrative. While I wanted to like this, especially considering it's great cast, it fell short of anything exceptionally funny or meaningful. Sorry Charlie.

Just a total snooze fest. It's been said in other reviews, and I'm not normally one to pile on, but dead lord... what happened here? I like Charlie Day just fine, the rest of the cast is good, the plot is of course quite dumb which isn't always a bad thing in a comedy such as this one, but it's simply not funny... ever, at all. It's just like the world's worst episode of curb your enthusiasm or something where there's no script at all and we're all expected to find it funny because the actors were funny in other things we've already seen.

I am someone who sticks out bad movies - almost always - but I gave up and stopped watching a little more than halfway through. I just didn't care, wasn't laughing, and had better things to do.

Skip this one.