REVIEW. GOOD FORTUNE: Send me an angel? Maybe not.

From Left: Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves, Aziz Ansari

Keanu Reeves had me at hello. Well, more specifically, he made me smile the first time back in 1989 when his Ted "Theodore" Logan and fellow time-traveler Bill Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) invited us all to "Party on, dudes," in Stephen Herek's sci-fi comedy hit, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. As a result of the movie's success, Bill and Ted became pop culture icons of a sort and Reeves went on to become a mega-star with box office winners like Point Break and Speed, and enduring classics that include Something's Gotta Give, The Matrix trilogy and, most recently, the John Wick franchise.

Truth is, I've seen pretty much of all Keanu's films, starting with 1985's disturbing crime drama, River's Edge, a based-on-a-true story about a group of AP high school students (known as the AP posse) who tried to cover up the killing of a classmate by one of their intellectually gifted friends. I taught AP American History in the mid-80s, so this story carried a personal interest and a bit of professional horror, especially when some of my students used to talk about how they could easily plan and get away with everything from petty theft to murder.

What I remembered most about River's Edge, though was Reeves' face: a young, stunningly beautiful countenance with innocent eyes expressing the kind of searching often associated with the inexperience of youth. Three years later, Reeves popped up as part of the heavyweight ensemble cast in Stephen Frears' period drama, Dangerous Liaisons, as Le Chevalier Raphael Darceny, opposite the likes of Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfieffer and Uma Thurman.

More interesting film choices followed. Yet, despite his impressive first decade of movie-making that demonstrated a range in characters, from FBI agent Johnny Utah (Point Break) to Don Juan (Much Ado About Nothing), movie genres as diverse as action (Speed) and comedy (Parenthood), period pieces (Bram Stoker's Dracula) and off-beat indies (My Own Private Idaho), Reeves has never been able to shake the persona of underachiever Ted Logan. Maybe it's the flat detachment in his voice, which sounds like he's either dumb, stoned, or both. Perhaps, it's the slightly awkward way he moves, with a grace that always seems a touch off-kilter.

In real life, Reeves is a bit of an enigma: though known for his generosity on movie sets (he once gave each crew member a motorcycle), he's refused to cash in on financial success, turning down the opportunity to make a lucrative sequel to Speed in order to try an unconventional independent drama called Feeling Minnesota. He continues to eschew a celebrity lifestyle and, for years, he did not have a residence, choosing instead to live in hotels and on the road. When his sister Kim was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991, he put his career on hold to become her primary caregiver, and later gave 70% of his Matrix salary to leukemia research. He continues to fly under the radar with charitable donations, and is often spotted sitting with homeless people on the streets of Los Angeles, bringing them food and listening to their stories.

I've spent a good amount of time the past four decades defending, or more appropriately, explaining to students, friends, colleagues and family members, why Keanu Reeves is more than Ted, that neither his less-than-slick personality and halting voice nor the commercial success of many of his movies do not make him less of an actor, or less discerning about the roles he takes on. He's tried everything from Hamlet to Waiting for Godot and is currently co-starring in the latter on Broadway with his longtime buddy and acting colleague, Alex Winter.

So here we are with Keanu's latest, a featured role as an angel (not the angel) Gabriel in Aziz Ansari's first movie as writer/director/star, Good Fortune. This Gabriel, well-intentioned, if inept, is a low order seraph whose primary job is intervening with drivers distracted by texting. In car after car, Gabriel taps the driver (they can't see him) just in time to avoid a catastrophic accident.

But Gabriel longs to do more. He wants to save lost souls, and when he sees Arj (Ansari), a young man struggling to make ends meet, he takes it upon himself to intervene and swaps Arj's life with that of a successful tech giant named Jeff (Seth Rogan). When he fails to convince Arj that having wealth will not solve his problems, Gabriel's supervisor Martha (Sandra Oh) takes away his wings (they're too small for him to fly since he's a low level angel) and demotes him to a human being. Gabriel is left to clean up his mess and also to navigate in the world without any celestial help.

Ansari's story is kind of hodgepodge of ideas and commentaries, a sometimes affecting, but not always persuasive treatise on the economic disparities and financial inequities between the many poor and fewer rich. I kept thinking that he wanted to make a contemporary Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders 1987 masterpiece about angels providing hope to the distressed, but instead ended up with Michael, Nora Ephron's 1996 comedy with JohnTravolta as the archangel Michael who takes it upon himself to help lost souls find each other.

Here, Reeves looks more like Peter Falk in Wings (well, maybe more like Falk's popular TV detective, Columbo), and talks and behaves more like Travolta's Michael, whose hard-drinking archangel swears like a sailor. It's an interesting hybrid of looks and Reeves' sometimes flat, stilted voice and jarring physicality work, in this case, as an angel who may be more lost than the people he wants to save, and whose baptism into the real world brings him more stress and frustration that he is ready to handle.

It's all low-key, good-natured fun, though, as Ansari's screenplay never develops the bite necessary to make a strong commentary about current gig economy. I got the feeling he wanted to make It's a Wonderful Life or even take down the Wolf of Wall Street, but wound up instead with an extended episode of Touched By An Angel. Too bad. Ansari has assesmbled an able and competent cast and all are in sync with the script's various nuances and plot twists. Besides Reeves, Rogan and Oh, there's Keke Palmer, who gives a fine performance as Arj's girlfriend Elena, a union-activist who is determined to make a positive change for the hourly employees where she works. It is Reeves, however, who really provides the spark that makes the story worth watching.

There's no loud, fall-out-of-your chair humor here (though the people sitting a few rows in front of me let out several stentorian guffaws), as the actors interpret the in's and out's of the plot with understated comedic timing. Good Fortune is a warm-hearted comedy that hits the main points it wants to make, but misses opportunities to rise about some of its clichés and predictable outcomes. Still, I would be remiss if I didn't say Ansari's efforts are amiable enough, providing a pleasant afternoon at the theater and leaving the audience with positive vibes about finding our bliss, even if/when that happiness doesn't include a mega-million dollar bank acccount.

As the credits rolled to Australian band Real Life's 1983 hit, Send Me An Angel, I couldn't help but smile and recall the movie's one ongoing joke re: Reeves' Gabriel is repeatedly referred to as being "hot." At sixty-one, he doesn't possess the same puppy dog eyes that lit up when George Carlin's Rufus took him and Bill on a time-traveling phone booth ride. Or the wide-eyed romanticism embodied by Le Chavalier Danceny. What I did observe was an actor still searching, always bringing genuine curiosity to whatever character he is playing, along with an invitation to the audience to join him on another wild, if implausible, adventure.

In that way, Good Fortune is most triumphant.

Party on, cherubs.

*******

Good Fortune is currently playing in theaters and is rated R for language, adult humor and some drug use. It is scheduled to stream on STARZ and other platforms in January or February 2026.