The Love Punch
Director: Joel Hopkins
Actors: Emma Thompson, Celia Imrie
Release Date: Friday 18th April 2014
Genre(s): Factual
Running time: 94 minutes
It's easy to see what writer-director Joel Hopkins (Last Chance Harvey) was after here. A romantic comedy caper aimed at an audience bracket largely ignored by movies - clean wholesome fun where everything's just a bit silly. Hopkins has managed to do all that but that still doesn't make it a good movie.
Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson have been divorced for years but there's still a spark there despite frequent denials on her part. When his business is bought and sold off, taking their pensions and houses with it, they're forced to team up and make for Paris to confront the cad responsible. Fobbed off, they aim to crash this Gordon Gekko's wedding and steal the priceless diamond he has given to his fiancee (Louise Bourgoin) as a wedding gift. Roping in neighbours Spall and Imrie, they go about putting their plan together...
Despite setting the tone early with a title sequence set to Status Quo the lightweight proceedings still don't click. If this was a Pink Panther caper, fine, but we're asked to appreciate the dire straits this former couple are in so they would be desperate enough to attempt such a madcap plan, but this fear of impending poverty never registers. There's no weight or emotional heft to it: you might wish they steal the diamond and get back together but it won't mean anything if they do and the whole thing will be forgotten inside ten minutes. The broad comedy relies on stereotypes - students are stoned, Texans are larger-than-life, and businessmen are callous. There's a world between silly fun and ridiculousness.
But Brosnan and Thompson put in a shift to save it from being a complete disaster. Always likeable (except for her grating turn in Saving Mister Banks), Thompson is unpredictable here even if there's little she can do to hide the fact that she will eventually succumb to Brosnan's cheeky wink. Brosnan, meanwhile, channels the knowing charm from his recent Sky ad.
Fine if you happened across it while channel surfing on a Sunday evening.
