Synopsis
A cameraman is knocked over during a football game. His brother-in-law, as the king of the ambulance-chasing lawyers, starts a suit while he's still knocked out. The cameraman is against it until he hears that his ex-wife will be coming to see him. He pretends to be injured to get her back, but also sees what the strain is doing to the football player who injured him.
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Cast
- Jack LemmonHarry Hinkle
- Walter MatthauWillie Gingrich
- Ron RichBoom Boom Jackson
- Judi WestSandy Hinkle
- Cliff OsmondPurkey
- Lurene TuttleMother Hinkle
- Harry HolcombeO'Brien
- Les TremayneThompson
- Marge RedmondCharlotte Gingrich
- Ann ShoemakerSister Veronica
Recommendations
- 90
The Hollywood Reporter
The Fortune Cookie is Billy Wilder's best picture since The Apartment, his funniest since Some Like It Hot. - 80
Time Out
On the surface it's a complete delight, with Matthau's relentlessly funny lines taking most of the honours, but underneath lies a disenchantment as bleak as The Apartment: amoral, misogynist characters (in Lemmon's case, literally spineless) racing through ever more futile efforts to outmanoeuvre each other. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Despite some minor flaws, The Fortune Cookie is a very satisfying film. - 70
The New York Times
The Fortune Cookie is no more sunny--and, if possible, even less romantic--than Kiss Me, Stupid, Mr. Wilder's last film and a comedy of unrelieved vulgarity, but it has style and taste. - 70
Chicago Reader
Wildly funny in spots, but nihilistic in the extreme. - 63
USA Today
Sometimes uproarious but overly sentimental. [14 July 2003, p.1D] - 60
Empire
Rarely has screen satire been so bleak or so mercilessly funny. - 60
Variety
Generally amusing (often wildly so) but overlong.
