Forty years ago, give or take, Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy starred in the comedy “Trading Places,” which did surprisingly well at the box office and later became applauded as one of the indisputable classics of the decade. As the result of a bet, a rich Philadelphia stock-exchange trader living a sumptuous life swaps places with a poor Black man who lives on the street. How would each man come to terms with living the life of the other?
“Good Fortune” (Lionsgate), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, takes the idea and adds a razor-sharp political message. At one point, Elena, who is campaigning to form a union at a B&Q-type hardware store, remarks, “How can I fight a giant corporation when I’m fighting just to get by?” It resonates with what we hear in the corner shops, cafes, and cinema in Montrose. “How’s everybody not just miserable. All the time?” asks Gabriel, an angel. The answer is that many people are.
Arj, played by Aziz Ansari, who also directs the film, dreams of being an “editor” and feels that there something vaguely shameful about the way he gets by. He bids for menial tasks on an app called “TaskSergeant.” At the film’s opening, he is fulfilling an assignment by waiting in a two-hour line for cinnamon buns; the stock runs out and he doesn’t get paid a cent for his time. But one of the app’s “Tech-Bro” investors, Jeff, played by Seth Rogen, jumps the line and nabs a bag of warm, fresh-out-of-the-oven buns. Later, Arj accepts an assignment at Jeff’s glass-fronted house which brazenly looks down over the city—“I am a master of the universe,” it seems to say. The subsequent few scenes exhibit the stark gap between rich and poor and emphasise how the wealthy look down upon the little people from their homes on high.
Enter Gabriel, an angel who “saves people when they are texting and driving.” He is bored: “Is there any way I could have more meaningful duties?” he asks his boss. He sees Arj suffering, “His head’s in his hands. I knew it—a lost soul,” and offers his saving powers. Arj isn’t sure whether to believe Gabriel, but Gabriel brandishes his beyond-all-reasonable-doubt proof. “Maybe you don’t understand,” he says. “I’m an angel. See the wings?” And so, the switch is brought about and the comedy takes off. But when the boss removes Gabriel’s wings—“You’ve been let go,” (“de-winged” instead of “de-frocked?”)—he joins now-poor Jeff who is rapidly wising up to how painful it is to live in extreme poverty.
For a first feature film, Mr Ansari’s work is unfaltering and weighty. The social commentary doesn’t overpower the comedy. Occasionally the speech is too fast—a pity because the humour invariably hits the target. To linger longer on the lines would have been to allow the audience to savour them more. “Could you fly?” “No—my wings were too small;” “I can’t send someone to hell. That’s actually not my department;” “People can see me. I have less powers. It’s embarrassing.” The blood-sucking life of the investor with its idleness, conspicuous consumption and flagrant disregard for the needs of others is sketched exceptionally well. The fanciful delusions of the rich are dispatched quickly: “Enjoy the fruits of my hard work,” he yells at one point, as if Arj and the poor don’t work hard too. And later on, “I came from nothing. I’m self made!” “My father was an orthopaedic surgeon. And my grandfather … owned newspapers.” Before the switch, Jeff patronisingly remarks of Arj, “I’m very digging this initiative you are showing right now.” Jeff lazes about on a children’s inflatable on his swimming pool, eating guacamole and drinking alcohol, covets an appointment with George Clooney’s shaman, and buys a quarter-million-dollar watch. The insider tips are designed to offend and grate: “They fly the fish in from Japan every morning. Very high carbon footprint.”
“I can’t make enough money to live off this,” Gabriel says of his job as a kitchen porter. His colleague then reveals the great mystery of life: “I have three jobs. Sorry. This is how it is.” And some of the humiliations of taking jobs from apps such as “TaskSergeant” are brought to light. For instance, while waiting to pick up an order, “Drivers can’t use the bathroom.” Or, “Where’s the extra ranch homie? One ranch, one star, bitch.” The degrading scraps thrown off the table of the wealthy such as a tip of just $1.15.
Keanu Reeves plays the role of fallen angel (and “dishwasher at an all-you-can-eat Korean restaurant”) with a generous sprinkling of his signature mannerisms from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” And much is made of his sex appeal—“You could give the tall guy my number,” says a nurse at the hospital at one point. “It’s fine with me!” He is also awarded many of the film’s funniest lines as we watch him navigating life as an ex-angel. But the most exact character is hardware-store-employee Elena, played by Keke Palmer. She likes Arj as the poor man but hates him as the rich one. In a perfectly timed, cutting scene by the pool, city in the background, Arj, oozing entitlement, offers to magic her away for a weekend in Paris. He ridicules her reason for refusing, which is a clash with a crucial union vote. “I have to fight for it whether you think it’s worth fighting for or not,” she tells him.
Arj doesn’t want to switch back with Jeff—“Wealth…seems to have solved most of his problems,” Gabriel sighs. Any Hollywood studio having a go at a “Trading-Places” movie risks shouts of “hypocrite” from the audience—irrespective of the relative merits of the film. Many of us find the life of the “investor” repugnant rather than aspirational; even so, the drip-drip of propaganda emanating from Hollywood (idolising precisely this life) rubs off on even the most resolute. In one of the first scenes where Elena meets Arj, he is fatalistic. “Nothing ever changes,” he says. “So what’s your answer,” Elena asks, “Give up?” “I don’t have an answer,” he replies.
Adam Poole
26th October 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
