Well if you thought poor “Clarence” was a bit hopeless in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) then wait til you meet “Gabriel” (Keanu Reeves). He’s an entry-level angel, replete with stunted wings, who is charged with stopping careless drovers from texting whilst crashing. He’s bored, and so when he spots the down-at-heel “Ari” (Aziz Ansari) he believes he might have discovered a pet project for himself. This man works in one of those rent-a-person jobs running errands for folks and living on their meagre tips. One such trip sees him at the luxurious home of “Jeff” (Seth Rogan). He’s supposed to cl…
Late-stage capitalism... yay
From a technical standpoint this movie has it. It has great visuals, lovely cast, great sound, good music.
But that's not why you watch movies, at least not solely. You watch them to feel something. And this movie only makes you feel even more bereft of space and validity in this late-stage capitalism hellscape we live in. It isn't uplifting. It isn't enlightening. It is not even funny half the time. It just points out how bleak the world is, and I knew that already.
Aziz Ansari’s feature directorial debut hit more marks than it missed. It was entertaining enough to be fun, contained enough substance to provoke thoughtful insight, and made clever jokes that we’ve come to know from Aziz Ansari. No breakout performances by any means if anything Keanu Reeves was the worst but with mediocre performances all around it’s hard to not pay attention to the actual plot. We’ve seen this plot done SO many times but this one was still fun and worth a watch when it streams.
