Plot is all washed up in hunt for sunken treasure

Fool s Gold (12) Director Andy Tennant Starring Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland, Alexis Dziena, Ewen Bremner, Ray Winstone 113 mins One star rating Sun, sea, romance, a little sprinkling of action – how bad could it be? There s a simp

Fool's Gold (12)

Director Andy Tennant Starring Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland, Alexis Dziena, Ewen Bremner, Ray Winstone

113 mins

One star rating

Sun, sea, romance, a little sprinkling of action - how bad could it be?

There's a simple undemanding idea here which is to resurrect the old Romancing The Stone formula but add a dash of the Pirates Of The Caribbean.

So, to that end, you have a just-divorced couple Ben (McConaughey) and Tess (Hudson) reunited by the possibility of finding sunken Spanish treasure while trying to ward off the violent attentions of a gangsta rapper who is also after the loot.

It's all in the chemistry and when Matthew met Kate, it was murder.

They bicker their way through some admittedly weak dialogue and, rather than sounding like charming romantic leads, they're like the awful arguing couple you feel obliged to invite to a social event but pray won't come. That the film is a bit mindless and silly is one thing, but it is also incredibly boring - Russian art house movie boring.

Almost nothing happens and when it does it's surprisingly violent. It's brainless yet in among it all there is a five-minute sequence where Hudson and McC tag team their way through an interminable bit of exposition regarding the origin of the buried treasure. I defy anyone to try to follow what it is all about.

These are two leads for whom the boat has long since sailed - yet they both still swan around like they're hot stuff. These two gleaming figures are menaced by a simplistic Gangsta Rapper caricature called Bigg Bunny who gets so frustrated with his relaxed casual help (primarily Malcolm-Jamal Warner from The Cosby Show), he gets a tough white man in to instil a bit of discipline in the lazy locals.

The support cast idle away their paydays doing silly accents. Sutherland's English gent voice is rather good but, until someone helpfully explained that he was Ukrainian, I had no idea what accent Bremner was attempting. It sounded initially like a homage to the blocked-up man in the old Tunes advert, "I'd like a first-clash return to Dottingham please.