To me, this movie is perfection.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Marked as the first pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, who subsequently worked together on 11 future additional films, the Fortune Cookie directed by Billy Wilder, was a tasty delight. The movie tells the story of a crooked lawyer, Willie Gingrich (Walter Matthau) whom persuades his brother-in-law, a CBS sport-cameraman Harry Hinkle (Jack Lemmon), to feign a serious injury, so that, both can receive a huge indemnity from the insurance company. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, while it's not the funniest movie, in Billy Wilder's filmography, but it's by far, my favorite John Lemmon & Billy Wilder film, they shot together. Jack Lemmon was near-perfect in this film. He wasn't so over the top, here, like his previous roles. The way, he acted like he was injury, honestly made me believe, he was indeed stuck being wheelchair bound, at times. Walter Matthau as Willie Gingrich, was just as hysterical and wonderful as Jack Lemmon. Matthau won his Academy Award Oscar for Best Supporting Actor playing bottom feeding lawyer, Whiplash Willie from this film. I think he deserve that win, big time. Walter Matthau really put, everything in this role. Mad props, go to the fact that Walter return to the role, after suffering a heart attack. He had slimmed from 190 to 160 pounds by the time filming was completed, and had to wear a heavy black coat to conceal the weight loss. That's shows, how driven, he was, to this film. Despite, his character being a shyster, Walter had enough charm with his attitude, to make Whiplash Willie, a bit likable. The chemistry between Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau is so far, the best thing in the film. They bonded so well. So, it was no surprise that they would remain friends the rest of their lives. The snobbish Lemmon and the bad-tempered Matthau provided the perfect counter-point. The supporting characters were pretty good, as well. While, his character was a bit underdeveloped, I kinda Ron Rich as Luther "Boom-Boom" Jackson. A lot of people, criticize his character as a man-servant, but I don't think it, that way. He felt guilty, for 'injuring', Harry, so he just wanted to help. He had that All-American Boy-Scout charm. It hasn't nothing to do with his race. One of my favorite characters in this film has to be Cliff Osmond as Chester Purkey, Private Eye Insurance investigator. I love the whole cat-and-mouse game starts between him and Gingrich. The only character that I didn't like, was Judi West as Sadie Hinkle. It wasn't, because her character was one-dimensional selfish or the actress portraying her didn't do a good job. It was, because how late, in the film, she appeared. For somebody, that supposed help, the good nature, Harry to go along with the scheme. She really doesn't get, much screen-time for odd reason. While, this movie has some of Billy Wilder's most famous trademarks, such as feature characters who try to change their identity, women often represented as dangerous, lust, greed and manipulative, and last often cynical but humorous, sweet and sour dialogue. There was one thing that this movie was missing from the great Hollywood provocateur. It didn't have that great narration. With no narration, the movie moves like a book, instead of a film; from chapter title screen to chapter title screen. While, this seem like nitpicking. The way, the film does its story-telling, makes it seem like the source was taken from a famous book, than an original work. It was a bit weird. This movie might be one of the very earlier films, that I can remember, that had product placement. Like Wilder's previous film, 1961's One, Two, Three, which feature the Coca-Cola company; this film has the National Football League (NFL), and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) intertwining with the script; giving the movie, a sense of realism. While the film does somewhat make those companies look bad, due to how stubborn, their insurance companies were; it does give some insight, of what these companies were going, through at, the time. The first Super Bowl was only a year, away after all. I like how Billy Wilder shot the opening sequence during an actual Vikings-Browns game on October 31, 1965. Surprising, this might be the only footage of that game, as networks at the time, commonly wiped broadcast sports tapes at the time, and recorded over with different content to save cost. So, if you ever, like to see an old school football game, before the 1970 merger. Between the NFL and AFL (American Football League). Here is your chance! Even if you're not a football fan, this is a great film. The movie had a great story that influence other works, such as 1990's TV Shows like Simpsons and Wing's episodes, where they tackle a similar premise. Overall: The fortune cookie is worth a bite, into. It is poignant as it is funny, and I highly recommend it to any generation.

As with most Billy Wilder movies this appears to be tackling issues way ahead of it's time. A lot of reviews i have read have accused this movie of racism but at the end 1 white and 1 black man are the only 2 people who share morals. A fantastic Walther Mathau demands attention throughout and Jack Lemmon plays the fall guy again as he does best. With a magnificent cast and attentive direction this masterpiece is proof that not all modern movies with millions behind them are the best. This ageless beauty will still be a classic in a hundred years. God bless both Jack and Walter,,,what a gift to leave all modern movie makers.

Jack Lemon is a TV cameraman photographing a football game in Cleveland. A runner, Ron Rich, is knocked out of bounds and propels Lemon into an obstacle. Lemon isn't hurt bad but is being checked out in the hospital when his brother-in-law, Walter Matthau, a shoddy personal negligence lawyer known as "Whiplash Willie," decides that Lemon should fake a partial paralysis so that the insurance company can be bilked. The ruse is elaborate. Every move the insurance investigators make is anticipated by the sedulous Matthau. "We know what they know, but they don't know we know." Ron Rich, the football player, is stricken with guilt at having injured someone. He spends all his time caring for the phony paralytic, neglects practice, and begins drinking. Lemon's wife, Judi West, has run away with a band leader but now, in anticipation of a juicy settlement, returns to him to share his good fortune. Lemon thinks it's love.Most of the movie has Lemon trying desperately to fake his injury, while at the same time being ashamed of doing it. Matthau is grimly determine. Rich is pathos itself. West is slinkily feminine and wily.The movie really belongs to Matthau. He's marvelous as the slimy lawyer. He works out of a cubicle in a huge building and treats his office the way he treated his apartment in "The Odd Couple." A shameless slob, before important visitors arrive he flings some dusty papers out of the way and empties a waste basket on the floor to offer them a seat, meanwhile cheerfully humming a tune from "The Barber of Seville". But Lemon is more than just a straight man. He burns with outrage and humiliation as Matthau coaches him through the performance.The premise is great, and so are Matthau and Lemon, but the movie isn't as antic as some of Wilder's other comedies of the period -- "One, Two, Three" or "Some Like It Hot". It's closer in its intent to "The Apartment," an attempt at blending comedy and poignancy. Maybe in some ways it takes more skill to fuse the two than it does to stick to pure comedy. "Annie Hall", possibly Woody Allen's best movie, succeeded. And Howard Hawks' "Monkey Business" was a serious treatment of a disturbed marriage cloaked in farce."The Fortune Cookie," for all its jokes, doesn't quite cut it. It isn't that some of the jokes are dated, though they are. Well -- having brought up ludic obsolescence, I'll give an example. When Matthau discovers that Lemon's apartment is bugged and being photographed by investigators across the street, their eyes and ears open for any signs of fakery, he begins to play for his audience -- how terrible Lemon's plight is. It's like the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. An innocent young person walks through the woods and is attacked by a wolf pretending to be Grandma and so on -- the last line delivered with a portrait of Whistler's mother behind him. Lemon protests that he'd rather die than be paralyzed. "Better Red Riding Hood than Dead Riding Hood," replies Matthau. Kids, in 1966 we had this thing called "the Cold War." We were the good guys and the evildoers were the communists, or "Reds." There was a genuine threat of a nuclear holocaust, which some of us were willing to risk, and a few were eager for, because, as the expression went, "Better dead than Red." That's the slogan Matthau builds his joke on. Ha ha. Fortunately for everyone, the Cold War ended in 1989 and there has been world peace ever since. Alright. You may now return to your Gameboys.I love the comic theme of Lemon's posturing and Matthau's reckless pursuit of a million dollars, but the melancholy story of Ron Rich's decline and Judi West's low-level cynicism don't really carry enough passion to grip us. Shirley McClaine's hopeless affair with the married phony Fred MacMurray in "The Apartment", though trite, was presented as genuine enough to make us care, but not enough to depress us. But here, Ron Rich's character is depressing and Judi West's is tiresome.A good movie. I wish it had been better.

A greedy lawyer convinces his cameraman brother-in-law to sue after the latter is inadvertently hit by a football player while filming an NFL game. In the first of several films to pair Lemmon and Mathau, the actors play roles typical of their collaborations, with the former a decent, neurotic fellow and the latter a shyster. After "The Apartment," Wilder never quite achieved the success he experienced earlier in his great career as he was churning out one classic after another. This is a product of his declining years - not bad but not very funny either and far too long for a comedy. Whatever happened to West, the attractive actress who plays Lemmon's ex-wife?