| Fortunes |
| Movie Review by R.J. Carter Published: December 7, 2005 |
| This review originally appeared on "The Trades" website. |
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Three men take a wrong turn and end up on fate's doorstep in Parker Cross's cerebral comedy, "Fortunes". Phil (Tony Hale, Arrested Development) is a father with untapped feelings of inadquacy at his job. James (Mike McGlone) is a smirking jock-like investment banker. And Lewis (James Urbaniak) is a writer for a television show who's struggling to get his short story collection recognized by a publisher.
When these three pass the threshold of a fortune teller's storefront, two of them exit with deep changes. Phil, who is told that something dreadful will happen to his son if he doesn't prepare, becomes increasingly neurotic. He calls the schoolteacher four times a day. He teaches him how to swim in the bathtub in case he ever falls in a pool and drowns. He performs his own home makeover to create a secret access from his room to his son's through the back of the closet.
Lewis, on the other hand, doesn't reveal what his fortune was, but goes through his own share of life-altering changes. Fed up with his overbearing boss, he tells him off and walks out. But instead of poring himself into his art, he becomes a recluse, rarely shaving, barely bathing -- and with a strange moral shift that has him breaking off his affair with a married woman in favor of a stripper who comes from a redneck family of bikers. Peter Dinklage ("Elf") makes a guest appearance as a four-time convict who kicks James's butt when James makes the mistake of calling him "little man."
"Fortunes" is a comedy in the school of Woody Allen's subtle dryness. It's not a laff-a-minute festival, but more of a head-shaker as each character's life descends further into chaos, until James decides it's time to confront the fortune teller to set everyone back on track. But maybe fate has nothing to do with everything that's gone on after all.
