Good Fortune (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Good Fortune

GOOD FORTUNE (2025)

Starring Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh, Sherry Cola,  Joe Mande, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Blanca Araceli, Aditya Geddada, Alexander Jo, Kristen Henley, Shoukath Ansari, Erik Estrada, Wil Sylvince, Michael Arnold, Cam Barr, Addie Weyrich, Cari Shayne, Nena Woolworth, Nate Jackson, Jesus Garcia and Penny Johnson Jerald.

Screenplay by Aziz Ansari.

Directed by Aziz Ansari.

Distributed by Lionsgate. 94 minutes. Rated R.

There is something rather brilliant about the idea of having Keanu Reeves play an angel whose job is helping to save the lives and the souls of people. After all, the actor is well-known for his humbleness, his kindness and his generosity. He is shockingly down-to-earth for a man who has been a movie star for decades now. His sense of inner decency and good humor adds more to this film than can be adequately stated.

Reeves is the best element in Aziz Ansari’s comeback project, but he is not the only good part.

Which is nice because Ansari is a talent who has been missed. Deservedly or not, the writer / actor / comedian’s last two projects, the final season of his Netflix series Master of None and his aborted last film project Being Mortal were canceled due to #MeToo scandals. In fairness to Ansari, his scandal around the time of Master’s demise has since been downgraded in public sentiment from accusations of sexual misconduct to acknowledging that maybe the dude was just a really bad date. Being Mortal was closed down due to the on-set misbehavior of his star, Bill Murray, and not due to anything that Ansari did.

For Good Fortune, Ansari takes inspiration from bits of such classic films as It’s a Wonderful Life, Trading Places, Freaky Friday, Wings of Heaven and even It Happened One Night, and fits them all together, and somehow it mostly works.

Reeves plays Gabriel, a low-level angel who specializes in saving people who text and drive. While he knows he is doing decent work, he wants to really affect a life and save a soul. He turns his attention to Arj (Ansari), an aspiring documentary film editor who is stuck in a bunch of dead-end gig economy jobs. No matter how much he tries, he can’t seem to catch a break. He hates his job and is having to live in his car, at least until it is towed away.

Things seem to be turning around when Arj gets a job as the assistant to a rich tech bro named Jeff (Seth Rogen), however Arj uses his corporate credit card to pay for a date with Elena (Keke Palmer), a pretty worker Arj knew from one of his jobs. He only did it because he couldn’t afford the restaurant that Jeff recommended and he was trying to pay it back, but Jeff fired him anyway.

Arj is losing his will to live, and Gabriel goes rogue from the angel hierarchy and makes it his personal mission to save Arj. In order to prove to Arj that money doesn’t buy happiness, he decides to give him Jeff’s life and money. What he never thought of is that Arj would love to have the money and the huge house. In the meantime, Jeff is stuck living Arj’s lifestyle and getting angrier and angrier seeing Arj spending his (or his parents’) money.

In the meantime, because he overstepped his authority, Gabriel loses his job as an angel and must learn to live as a normal human – from the good parts (tacos and dancing) to the bad (chain smoking and bad jobs). The only way things can be fixed is if he gets Arj to want to go back to his old life.

Honestly, while it is nice that Ansari is trying to make a statement about the haves and the have nots and the horrors of the gig society in his film, these are some of the weaker moments in Good Fortune.

However, watching Reeves discovering human vices and virtues is definitely worth the admission, and Ansari, Rogen and Palmer are such engaging performers that the film just flies by. Good Fortune may be just an okay piece of social commentary, but it is a damned funny film. Sometimes that’s all that you need.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 16, 2025.