Fool’s Paradise
ROADSIDE FLIXFool’s Paradise – written and directed by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia alum Charlie Day as his directorial debut – features quite the all-star cast, with heavy hitters such as Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, and hot off of his hit television show Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis. Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned factors coming together could save what ends up being a depressingly empty satirical look at the inner workings of Hollywood.
The disjointed nature of Day’s Fool’s Paradise as a whole, presumably due to a desire to chop the film down to a tight ninety minutes, is one of the biggest reasons the feature ultimately falls apart quite rapidly. Many significant moments throughout are not given any time to breathe, with an almost unbearable need to move the film along at a faster pace. One such sequence is the opening scene set in a hospital where Charlie Day's character, Latte Pronto, is in a hospital for a quick introduction before being thrown on the street by the staff. This should be a quick and concise introduction to Latte but is instead a dragged out, unfunny sequence. From here, Day’s character is utilized as a blank slate, an audience surrogate through and through; the way this is achieved is just to arrive at a string of lazy jokes done at the expense of Hollywood and the rich. This humor ultimately carries no substance whatsoever and strives to hinder an already unpleasant viewing experience. The added downfall of having the big name cast smirk their way through every minute of the runtime due to the “in on the joke” element of the whole thing really serves to alienate anyone watching as opposed to the intended effect of bringing the audience in on the jokes.
Charlie Day was given a lot of freedom when given the opportunity to write and direct his own feature film. This does feel like a wasted effort in the end with the movie itself, having the shot composition, lighting, and overall movement of a sitcom with a higher budget than usual. With the unfortunate drawback of having anything shot at night looking as if it’s a soundstage brimming with fluorescent light bulbs. This does not mean that Day should not follow up on this with a new feature film, but could just mean he needs a strong second hand to guide him a bit more. In terms of the other technical attributes, they are unsurprisingly unremarkable. The music composed by Job Brion may as well be non-existent as it is forgotten the moment it is finished playing, an unfortunate blunder from the same man who composed Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, Punch-Drunk Love, and much more. Music is an extremely important element of bringing a films emotional core to the forefront of the audience, and to have something like that missing is an inarguably massive strike against an already struggling film. Fool’s Paradise wrapped production, including reshoots, as early as December 2021, which means that it had the opportunity to fine tune some of these mistakes wile sitting in post for an excessive amount of time. Excessive being the only operative word when viewing a final product that could’ve used much more time in the oven, especially on the editing side which is primarily focused on in the post-production phase. The way that scenes, jokes, and performances cut together and end gives off the energy of a rushed final project, but this was anything but that. There is really no excuse for a ninety minute comedy to feel like a much longer, unfunny, vanity project.
At the end of the day, there is nothing offensive at work here, but what disappoints is that Fool’s Paradise is just another run-of-the-mill comedy where the jokes do not land with an internal sense of humor, not friendly for those on the external, and quite frankly, this is another comedy where the talent involved is severely wasted with a bloated cast-list utilized as cameos that have little character or impact. To put it bluntly, Fool’s Paradise is one of the worst films of 2023 so far this year. It lacks almost anything and everything that makes comedy actually funny. The comedic timing is strange, the editing feels off, and the jokes themselves are rarely worth more than a chuckle. Charlie Day doesn't deserve to be ignored from here on out, but what he does need is another shot to make something with a bit more internal from the heart and not necessarily something so big as Hollywood itself to dissect and analyze. Thankfully, Day’s performance is not the issue, neither is his direction, but a comedic satire where every joke almost immediately falls flat shows that he may need some help in the script department next time around, with Day’s directorial debut sadly being an easily skippable film with a bit of heart hidden behind a shoddily written satire. If there's an audience awaiting their chance to see this, then their best bet is waiting until there's a remote in their hand before they do.