A Fool and His Lack of Money

Rating: 6/10 (3 July 2007)

It was without doubt a good movie and more interesting than, say a comic book movie but also frustrating to watch. Its hard to watch sane healthy people who have no control over their lives. Of course it's an oppressive system we must live in which exploits our mistakes and misfortunes but a little thinking ahead can protect us from much of that. It seemed like his series of unfortunate events was compounded by his own poor decisions and irresponsibility. Also his own greed caused a lot of his problems. Why did he spend all of his savings on a bunch of bone scanners that he didn't know for certain he could sell? For the same reason people buy lottery tickets or blow all their money at casinos. I mean with those savings he could have made a significant down payment on a house and then got a regular job to pay the bills and meet his obligations to his wife and child. I found it hard to sympathize with this character who pursued wealth at the cost of his home and family. I thought he was a fool. Why didn't he pay his taxes? Why didn't he bother to check his last scanner after it had been in the possession of a crazy bum for several months before he showed it to a customer? Why did he get into the cab without enough money to pay the fare? Why did he get so many parking tickets? Were the police out to get him? Most intelligent people, after getting a few traffic tickets, learn how to keep from getting them. He admitted it was stupid to entrust a hippie with his bone scanner but then he turns around and devotes six months of his life to a few corporate suits, working like a slave without any certainty of any reward. And he claimed to be good with numbers? Trusting the hippie was far less stupid. But people who risk everything for the big payoff don't see that. Thats what this movie was about.
Will Smith did a good job in a serious role. I was never once reminded of Wild Wild West or Men in Black. His struggle in the movie was the kind of thing typical in many people's lives and the movie portrayed it with painful honesty. That honesty went somewhere else however, at the end of the film when it became a commercial for Dean Witter(Morgan Stanley). I was okay with the movie until its ending and that turned my critical eye towards it. He doesn't just attain happiness by reaching his goal but by becoming a multi-millionaire as the screen text informs us, accompanied by lilting, upper octave piano. What happened to his kid? What happened to his wife? How was he with God? It doesn't matter because he's a rich stockbroker and therefore happy. Propaganda.