‘Good Fortune’ movie review: Keanu Reeves is an angel in Aziz Ansari-Seth Rogen body-swap zinger

What a divine comedy this is! Set in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, Good Fortune tells the adventures of a slightly bumbling angel, Gabriel (Keanu Reeves). At a meeting of angels, Gabriel, who is responsible for watching over texting drivers, feels he is not doing meaningful work, especially after he hears another angel, Azrael (Stephen McKinley Henderson), saving yet another soul by showing them the way.  

He asks his boss, Martha (Sandra Oh), to give him more responsibility, but Martha tells him to concentrate on his work. On earth, Arj (Aziz Ansari), a documentary editor, is struggling to make ends meet, working various jobs and sleeping in his car, while hiding the bleak reality of his life from his father. In his job at a hardware store, he meets Elena (Keke Palmer), who wants to fight for better working conditions. 

As a gig worker, he meets Jeff, a tech bro, who agrees to a trial week of Arj as his assistant after Arj tidies Jeff’s garage. Arj’s duties include finding a shaman and setting up a disco floor for Jeff’s 40^th birthday bash. A series of unfortunate events cause Arj to lose his job and when his car is towed away as he dozes off at a Denny’s, it seems Arj has definitely hit rock bottom. 

That is when Gabriel thinks of making things better. He wants to show Arj that life will not be any better with money and body swaps Arj and Jeff. He fails spectacularly, as most of Arj’s troubles are easily solved with Jeff’s money. Martha takes off Gabriel’s wings for interfering and sends him to earth as a human. Jeff is in for a shock living like the plebs while Gabriel is quite pleased to be human falling in love with dancing, tacos and milkshakes even as he washes piles of dishes and watches baby elephants online.  

The only way for Gabriel to get his wings back is if Arj willingly switches back to his life. All three learn important life lessons — from money not solving all problems (it does smoothen the way) to the hardships of the gig economy (it is so easy to draw parallels with our app-driven lives greased by delivery people run to the bone). 

The cast riff off each other, sparking all sorts of good energy — from Reeves grooving to some secret music in his celestial head and Oh’s rariefied wisdom, to Rogen’s horrified discovery of how the rest of the world lives. Ansari, who has written and directed Good Fortune, has been quoted as saying he wanted to “write about things that everyone is dealing with that no one is talking about” and he does so with style in the charming film filled with good humour and feelings, where the jokes and observations land consistently. Last thought — is Arj a play on Raj? 

Good Fortune is currently running in theatres