Fool's Gold

This feeble Caribbean adventure comedy makes Sahara look like Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Matthew McConaughey plays Finn, and Kate Hudson is his estranged wife, Tess. She wants nothing more to do with him - but soon they're on the same billionaire press baron's yacht, chasing down another clue to the shipwrecked Spanish gold that has eluded them for years.

Also on board: Alexis Dziena's bubble-headed debutante, and her doting dad (Donald Sutherland); Ewen Bremner's Ukranian treasure-hunter (wasted); and a couple of gay kitchen staff.

To inject a semblance of suspense Ray Winstone plays an American rival who is also on the right track, and his wealthy backer, violent gangsta rapper Bigg Bunny.

Director Andy Tennant seems to be shooting for something on the lines of Romancing the Stone: screwball comedy basking in exotical locales with a dash of action heroics.

The theory is all very well, but in practice it takes a bit more rigor, effort, and imagination than anyone has mustered here. McConaughey performs in the same lackadaisical laidback style that has been his default mode for too long - though he still looks good without his shirt on, and he does take several hits to the head without demur. Hudson is nicely bronzed and gnaws on that lower lip like her mom used to, but screwball requires a bit of sexual tension if it's to bite. Neither party puts up enough of a fight.

Instead, the movie gets sidetracked by Dziena's quirky Paris Hilton caricature (though she's less of a caricature than the real thing). It's a lively performance, and that counts for something, but it's too bad they seem to have made up the script as they went along.

The first ten or 15 minutes are - not funny exactly, but at least moderately amusing. Finn accidentally scuppers his own boat, then barely escapes alive after being bound and chained and thrown to the sharks - emerging just in time to attend his divorce proceedings.

But that turns out to be the high point. As for the lowest ebb, an excruciating scene explaining why Finn believes the treasure is in the vicinity lasts at least three minutes and feels much longer.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com