I can be a leader of a movement that makes Keanu Reeves a thing for eating a burger and chicken nuggets! Good Fortune is a movie that snuck into our theaters, empty except for a few college kids taking class and another commentator on how movies are. Shame, because this 98 minute movie was 98 minutes well spent. Keanu Reeves plays Gabriel, an angel who tries to do a job that another angel, Azrael, does so well and messes up. Of course, there is hierarchy among angels too… And Gabriel loses his job (and his wings… No one is immune to the effects of a gig economy! Arj, played by Aziz Ansari, is a good guy who has a never-ending bad day, week, month. He doesn’t have enough money to own a house, so he lives in his car, does someone who does thankless jobs. plumber in hardware, cleaning garages and fixing stoves when he loses his moral compass… Josh is played by Seth Rogen, a rich tech bro who lives alone above the city lights in a big house with a swimming pool. He’s kind to Arj and gives him a job… Gabriel, fed up with saving people who text while driving, loses his wings (small wings because he’s low on the angel ladder of achievement) for trying to get Arj from his hopeless life and trade it with Josh. Josh is ready to slug it out. He is sure Arj will give him his old life back. Arj loves Josh’s life because just like all of us, he also has a cousin, Naveen, who lives it because he has a job at Microsoft… OMG hit the big screen in 2012 and wowed us with his humor as well as life lessons about faith as he went to organized went to see religion. OMG works even today because the humor is timeless. When Krishna drops the non-believer and tells him to ‘go straight, then left and then right then…’ and the non-believer Kanji Lal Mehta says, ‘If you are god, then you can drop me home, no?’ to which Krishna says, ‘It is my job to show you the way, you must take the step.’ In Good Fortune, when an angel she lost his way, it takes people to show him that hope lives. The movie turns from fun to tear-inducing despair rather quickly. It could have been funnier, but all that despair makes your coffee pretty sad. But it’s so great to see Keanu Reeves dancing, eating tacos and yes, realizing that he saved lives even though his wings were small and his job was a chore. We live in such horrible times when everyone covets the other guy’s life that we forget our humanity. Humanity that will help angels earn their wings back. So don’t forget to smile when you’re on that endless zoom call or a team meeting and yes, leave an extra fifty for the man who brings you your food, and a taco for Gabriel.
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