R | 1h 38min | Comedy, Satire, Drama | 12 May 2023 (USA)

As inflated and full of itself as it frequently is, Hollywood isn’t beyond occasionally looking into a mirror, realizes just how phony and shallow it appears to the world, and indulges in some hearty self-mocking.

Well over 100 movies fit this description and there are only a handful or so of them that are superb. These include “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Player,” “Get Shorty,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Mank,” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

In a manner not dissimilar to that of last year’s “Babylon,” “Fool’s Paradise” is a film containing several great story threads alongside almost as many that are not. Although these two productions have little in common regarding content, time frame, style, length, or intent, each is in desperate need of at least two more script rewrites, better editing, and the jettisoning of extraneous, inconsequential subplots.

“Fool’s Paradise” is the first feature written and directed by Charlie Day, a top-notch character actor best known as one of the core cast members in the long-running, cult-favorite TV series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

It becomes clear early on that Day is a disciple of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton: the three titans of silent film-era physical comedy. Rarely seen without a throwback hat that is one or more sizes too small, Day’s character (credited as “The Fool,” but eventually referred to as “Latté Pronto”) doesn’t speak and falls down a lot.

In one of the film’s best scenes, Latté has the ability to talk but doesn’t because, according to a mental health doctor looking to shirk his duty, Latté “has the mental capacity of a 5-year-old or a Labrador retriever.” The doctor tells a colleague that his patient can be cured of this unspecified ailment but, because the state (California) won’t pay for it, he’ll be bused to downtown L.A. and (literally) dumped in the street.

Latté isn’t homeless for long. A surly unnamed producer (Ray Liotta) pegs Latté as the doppelganger of a petulant unnamed method actor (also Day) who refuses to leave his trailer, thus halting the filming of a Billy the Kid biopic. The producer attempts to stop the bleeding by inserting Latté into the role as a temporary fix that turns out to be permanent.

A combination of stage fright, the inability to hit his marks, and a propensity to look directly into the camera are misconstrued by everyone as being as an innovative, breakthrough style of acting. In what feels like overnight, Latté is transformed into the Next Big Thing: an industry darling who is also adored by the tabloid press.

Had Day stuck with the rabbit-hole journey of Latté full-time, he might have crafted a movie that could be to Hollywood what “Being There” was to politics: a largely clueless man mistakenly viewed as a genius savant.

Instead, Day makes the critical mistake of including a parallel co-lead story centering on Lenny (Ken Jeong), a publicist with no clients and even less entertainment industry acumen. Sporting a cheesy pencil-thin mustache while perpetually downing tall-boy-sized energy drinks, Lenny’s alternating desperate cloying and back-slapping insincerity results in metaphoric fingernails on a blackboard.

Known mostly as the evil foil in “The Hangover” franchise and an equally smarmy teacher on the TV series “Community,” Jeoung is quite adept at playing unlikeable characters and his Kenny is exactly that here. However, the desired “yin and yang” effect Day was shooting for between Latté and Kenny plays out more like caustic oil and water.

Day would have served himself and the audience far better by regulating Kenny to support status and devoting more screen time to his dream ensemble cast.

Fairing the best is Kate Beckinsale who appears as Christiana, a self-absorbed diva who treats her three third-world adopted children as fashion accessories. Adrien Brody’s character is almost as shallow as Christiana. Brody plays a sleazy misogynist actor whose practice of driving muscle cars while drinking and firing handguns seems to have been modeled after Dennis Hopper and Phil Spector.

Showing up in glorified cameos are Edie Falco as Latté’s fair-weather agent, Dean Norris as a volatile studio chief, Common as a washed-up action star, and Jason Sudeikis as a schlock B-movie director. Day jumps the shark late in the third act with a scene featuring John Malkovich as a sinister political puppet master reminiscent of Ned Beatty’s firebrand turn in “Network.”

There is just enough positive stuff happening in “Fool’s Paradise” to warrant giving Day another shot behind the camera. Hopefully, he can follow this up with something far leaner and more focused.

“Fool’s Paradise” will be available in theaters and on Vudu starting May 12.

‘Fool’s Paradise’
Director: Charlie Day
Stars: Charlie Day, Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Ray Liotta
Running Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: May 12, 2023
Rating: 2.5 out of 5