The Love Punch. (15.)
Directed by Joel Hopkins.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Louise Bourgoin and Lauren Lafitte. 94 mins
Being Bond is a tough gig, yet it seems that Not Being Bond is even tougher. From Connery onwards, ex-Bonds have found it hard to rotate back into civilian stardom, none more so than Pierce Brosnan who seems to take a masochistic glory in picking bad projects. His latest is almost Mamma Mia atrocious.
Love Punch is a film aimed at the kind of people who complain that today’s movies are cynical exercises lazily pandering to the youth market, but will then lap up unquestioningly any slapdash productions that lazily panders to them. I can take a film about Brosnan and Thompson as a divorced couple who come back together when a young, heartless and irredeemably French, hedge fund manager bankrupts his company and steals their retirement fund; but not one where they then head off to his wedding in the South of France to steal a £10 million diamond.
It’s like a children’s movie for grown up; an Olsen Twins vehicle that has been hijacked by various Oscar/ Bafta honourees who are tired of always having to work their way through witty, intelligent scripts and have chosen instead to do some tripe that makes no sense and has no credibility, just for a lark.
If, after making Last Chance Harvey, Hopkins is going to make a career writing lazy, complacent middle aged star vehicles, he could at least direct them competently. Love Punch looks horrible and is one of those films where the only on screen intensity comes from the extras’ rigid attempts to behave naturally and not look into the camera.
Directed by Joel Hopkins.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Louise Bourgoin and Lauren Lafitte. 94 mins
Being Bond is a tough gig, yet it seems that Not Being Bond is even tougher. From Connery onwards, ex-Bonds have found it hard to rotate back into civilian stardom, none more so than Pierce Brosnan who seems to take a masochistic glory in picking bad projects. His latest is almost Mamma Mia atrocious.
Love Punch is a film aimed at the kind of people who complain that today’s movies are cynical exercises lazily pandering to the youth market, but will then lap up unquestioningly any slapdash productions that lazily panders to them. I can take a film about Brosnan and Thompson as a divorced couple who come back together when a young, heartless and irredeemably French, hedge fund manager bankrupts his company and steals their retirement fund; but not one where they then head off to his wedding in the South of France to steal a £10 million diamond.
It’s like a children’s movie for grown up; an Olsen Twins vehicle that has been hijacked by various Oscar/ Bafta honourees who are tired of always having to work their way through witty, intelligent scripts and have chosen instead to do some tripe that makes no sense and has no credibility, just for a lark.
If, after making Last Chance Harvey, Hopkins is going to make a career writing lazy, complacent middle aged star vehicles, he could at least direct them competently. Love Punch looks horrible and is one of those films where the only on screen intensity comes from the extras’ rigid attempts to behave naturally and not look into the camera.
