Keanu Reeves' incompetent angel elevates ‘Good Fortune’

The 1983 film Trading Places (also available to rent on Amazon) was fundamentally angry. Beneath the mistaken identities and comic set-pieces lurked genuine fury at a system rigged by bored rich men treating human lives as wagering chips. Murphy’s Billy Ray Valentine and Aykroyd’s Louis Winthorpe III were demolishing the myth of meritocracy. The films made you laugh so hard you barely noticed you were watching a takedown of American capitalism itself.

Good Fortune attempts something similar, though with considerably more gentleness. Here Seth Rogen plays an amiable millionaire with an enviably effortless life, a life that ends up being usurpsed by a down-and-out working man played by Ansari. As director, Ansari’s voice feels solid throughout, and the film is warmly made.

And then there’s Ansari’s actual voice, that distinctive shrill instrument capable of turning the most mundane observation into a hilarious trill. As both director and actor, he deploys his voice with precision, finding humour in the spaces between what people say and what they mean, in the awkward silences and over-explanations that define contemporary communication.

The film’s earnest appreciation for underpaid workers—the delivery drivers, the gig workers, the people society has decided to categorise as “independent contractors" rather than employees deserving benefits—gives Good Fortune unexpected weight. It’s one thing to make jokes about the modern economy, and it’s another to actually see the humans ground up in its gears. Ansari doesn’t look away. The comedy emerges from recognition, from the shared understanding that something is profoundly wrong with a world where corporations worth billions depend on workers earning pennies.

Yet here’s the thing about Good Fortune: it would be merely good, merely solid, merely another well-meaning indie comedy with something to say, if not for its secret weapon: Keanu Reeves as the most spectacularly incompetent angel since Clarence got his wings in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Reeves’s angel is tired. Not world-weary, not cynically exhausted, but genuinely, cosmically tired. He has the weariness of one who’s been working the same job for millennia and still hasn’t figured out the filing system. He’s an underachiever in the celestial bureaucracy, with small wings and lofty aspirations. Watching him navigate earthly concerns with the bewildered earnestness of someone reading IKEA instructions backwards is pure, sustained joy.

Watching Reeves eat his first burger is indescribably special.

Reeves plays this celestial being with his characteristic commitment to absolute sincerity. There’s no winking at the camera, no acknowledgment of the absurdity. His angel genuinely cannot understand why humans make things so complicated, why they’ve constructed elaborate systems designed to make simple kindness impossible. Every confused furrow of his brow, every bemused attempt to grasp modern bureaucracy, every moment of clueless divinity trying to process human illogic...This is all comedy gold mined from Reeves’s willingness to be utterly, wonderfully ridiculous.

This performance harkens directly back to Reeves’s breakthrough role, that of Ted “Theodore" Logan, that beautiful himbo who travelled through time with his best friend, collected historical figures like trading cards, and genuinely believed that rock music could save the world. The 1989 classic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the 1991 sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey are both streaming on Amazon. Those films were the most humanist films but disguised as stoner comedies. Ted Logan believed in excellence, in being kind to each other, in a future where everyone was decent because being decent was obviously the right thing to do. It was absurdist philosophy delivered with a valley-boy accent and air guitar solos. Optimism, the Wyld Stallyns reminded us, wasn’t naive but revolutionary.

Reeves’s angel in Good Fortune is Ted Logan all grown up and given cosmic responsibilities he’s hilariously unqualified for. The same wide-eyed wonder, the same fundamental belief in human goodness, the same confusion about why people insist on making everything harder than it needs to be. When he fumbles divine intervention, when he accidentally makes things worse with the best intentions, when he looks at modern capitalism with the bewildered incomprehension of someone who thought “be excellent to each other" was universal law…This is pure Bill & Ted energy channelled through a character ostensibly tasked with salvation.

Good Fortune succeeds because it fundamentally understands what made both Trading Places and Bill & Ted endure: comedy works best when it believes in something. Whether that’s righteous anger at systemic injustice or goofy faith in human decency, the jokes land harder when they’re aimed at targets that matter. And when you’ve got Keanu Reeves playing an angel who’s basically Ted Logan with wings and worse job performance reviews, well, that’s just excellent.

Everyone’s doing the best they can, remember. Cut your guardian angels some slack.

Streaming tip of the week:

The dim dudes return in the 2020 film Bill & Ted Face The Music, streaming on Amazon. It’s not as iconic or memorable as the two classics, but Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are lovely together, and there’s enough in here to tickle fans of the original.

Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen.