Is Fool's Gold really a new movie, or is it just some infernal clip reel cut together from that first Matthew McConaughey-centric Indiana Jones knockoff (Sahara), that romantic comedy in which Kate Hudson falls for a shaggy slacker against her better judgment (You, Me and Dupree), and that other movie in which Hudson falls for McConaughey (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days)? Well, Fool's Gold is, generously speaking, an "original," albeit the sort of movie that makes you look more kindly upon the WGA strike. It isn't merely bad — it's so desperate that the actors (including Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone) can scarcely conceal their contempt for the material. Even the boisterous McConaughey doesn't seem to be having a good time, despite being cast close to the fun-loving, nude-bongo-drumming Adonis he plays regularly in the pages of Us Weekly. As newly divorced treasure hunter Ben "Finn" Finnegan, searching for sunken Spanish gold off the coast of Florida with the help of his ex (Hudson), he puts on his best shit-eating grin and sprints half-naked through the streets of Key West. But even that clownish brio does little to abate the humid joylessness of watching a fortysomething refugee from a Jimmy Buffett concert spend two full hours of screen time trying to get rich quick.

Review by Scott Foundas