It's not good, this awful comedy that doubles as writer-director-star Day's platform and a ludicrous tribute to Old Hollywood. A "Threat Level Midnight" inside joke amongst Day's A-lister friends, the film has an offbeat narrative and numerous celebrity cameos. It's a filmmaking sensibility close to Adam Sandler's without the marketability for a broad audience. At its best, "Fool's Paradise" could have been a funny "The Other Two" episode about Hollywood's hollow craziness and the magic-making sleight-of-hand. Unfortunately, "Fool's Paradise" keeps the audience ensnared in the nine circles of hell.
Day performs dual (quadruple?) roles as Thomas Bingsley. He is a method actor and a psychiatric patient who has lost his capacity to speak due to terrible trauma. In the first scene of the movie, Ken Jeong plays a desperate publicist. He is trying to uncover the next famous actor to create "a real somebody from a nobody." That "nobody" turns out to be a patient with mental illness. This patient has the "mind of a five-year-old or a Labrador retriever" diagnosis as part of a "medically undefinable" case. Of course, the anonymous man has to leave the hospital because the state does not provide adequate mental healthcare.
Is it humorous or troubling? Day mutes the Ruprecht scene from "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which features both Chaplin and Steve Martin. A big-time producer (Ray Liotta) picks him up on the side of the road. He drives him to the "Billy the Kid" set, where Thomas Bingsley (also Day) is in his trailer drinking and using Western language to be "in character."
Thomas mistakenly kills himself while practicing a hanging scene for the movie. The mental patient-now known as Latte Pronto for Liotta having forcefully demanded a latte from a P.A.-steps in as a body duplicate and later a lead actor. Essentially, it follows the events of "Bowfinger," with Eddie Murphy. Complete with Latte’s co-star seducing him as part of his induction into the predatory nature of Hollywood.
Along with Common, Jason Bateman, John Malkovich, and Jillian Bell playing cameo roles, Adrien Brody, Edie Falco, and Jason Sudeikis play industry insiders. It's obvious that Day's real-life buddies are having a great time while filming, but it would be lovely if viewers got the humor too.
But the brief high point of the movie is a final performance by late superstar Liotta. The lone sane character, Liotta, yells "Fuck off!" into a smartphone, making him the ideal (and slightly deranged) straight man to whatever the heck Day is doing on screen. Watching Liotta perform his signature roles is "Fool's Paradise"'s one and only saving grace.
Sadly, Liotta isn’t the main star. Day, an “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” scene-stealer, traps himself in an unfunny slapstick comedy with references to Orson Welles and Angelina Jolie. Sure, Latte Pronto can climb the ladder of Hollywood without saying a word. The only problem is the would-be inside jokes of “Fool’s Paradise” fall on deaf ears.
