Sean_Biggins Review of The Fortune Cookie

The Fortune Cookie (1966)

I have to stop trusting the 8 and 10 star reviews... this movie is a 5 at best

[5/10 · 10 October 2022]

I think what happens is that people my age, born in the 50's and 60's, are nostalgic for that time and for actors they saw when they were kids so that sways them to give a film a higher rating than it deserves. This movie has a similar feeling to Mel Brooks' movies so if you like them then you'd probably like this, but I just found it quite lame after about a half hour. It's like they used to get an idea for a movie back then and convince themselves it was funny even though it wasn't. This is the kind of thing Seinfeld/Larry David were making fun of with the 'Butler' episode of Seinfeld where a guy is sentenced to be Jerry's butler, but in Seinfeld, the 'joke' is that it's a stupid idea but it's all they could come up with at the last minute so they went with it -- well, it's the same thing with this movie where a football player injures a cameraman which ends up in a lawsuit - it's just a very weak premise and they drag it out for 2 hours when it wasn't even a good enough idea for a 1/2 hour sitcom.