The Fortune Cookie

Directed by Billy Wilder, The Fortune Cookie follows Walter Matthau’s Willie Gingrich as he hatches a scheme to bilk an insurance company out of hundreds of thousands of dollars after his brother-in-law (Jack Lemmon’s Harry Hinkle) is injured at a football game. Filmmaker Billy Wilder, working from a script written with I.A.L. Diamond, delivers an exceedingly (and often excessively) lackadaisical endeavor that benefits from its predictably stellar performances, as Lemmon and Matthau’s engaging and completely charming work here sustains one’s interest even through the picture’s more overtly ineffective stretches (and it’s clear, certainly, that the famously palpable chemistry between the pair is in place virtually from their first scene together). There’s little doubt, then, that The Fortune Cookie‘s less-than-stellar atmosphere is due almost entirely to a sluggish, padded-out narrative that contains far too many lulls to comfortably overlook, with, as well, the hit-and-miss vibe compounded by a paucity of laughs and emphasis on certain underwhelming subplots – which ensures, though mostly genial and pleasant, the movie ultimately comes off as an entertaining yet erratic comedy that would’ve benefited from a much shorter running time. (The rather anticlimactic final scene is emblematic of the film’s rough-cut feel.)

**1/2 out of ****