A well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker and a wealthy venture capitalist.

Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut is a comedy about a down on his luck man (played by Ansari), who finds his life switched with a wealthy man after an angel intervenes in his life. The ‘Trading Places’ style premise has been done before, not least in that mentioned movie, but this is a fresh take with Ansari’s irreverent style all over it. It is called ‘Good Fortune’ and it is an enjoyable comedy with likeable performances from Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves, alongside Ansari.

‘Good Fortune’ begins by introducing us to Aziz Ansari’s Arj as he is waiting in line for a task he is undertaking through a task app. When one of his tasks takes him to the hilltop home of Los Angeles tech investor Jeff (Rogen), he gets a trial as his assistant, but that too goes awry, leaving Arj back at square one. All of this is witnessed by Gabriel (Reeves), a guardian angel who is usually tasked with preventing people who text and drive from causing accidents, but has loftier ambitions of saving lost souls – Arj, in this case, being the lost soul. His gambit is to offer Arj a chance to swap his life with Jeff for a week with the aim of it showing that being rich doesn’t solve all your problems, but of course it does actually solve quite a lot of his problems and he is reluctant to swap back, creating a problem for Gabriel and Jeff.

It’s a cool premise and it is at its best at the outset when we see Arj & Jeff familiarise themselves in their ‘new’ lives, and it provides insightful social commentary on the nature of the gig economy and a world where two people of similar age can have vastly different lives from a wealth perspective. I did feel it was out of steam a bit towards the end and it ended up repeating ideas, but it did make me laugh a lot throughout and I felt the central trio all bounced off each other well (Keke Palmer is also good as Arj’s love interest Elena). ‘Good Fortune’ is an entertaining comedy from Aziz Ansari, and it marks a solid feature debut from the well established comedian.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Aziz Ansari

Starring: Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt27543578/