Gambit, Cert 12A, 90 mins - review

Grit and glamour in Coen crime caper
p39 p40 p41 films
13 December 2012

Colin Firth recently described this star-studded remake of the Sixties crime caper as “comfort comedy”.

Here’s the pitch: mild-mannered, financially challenged art curator Harry Dean (Firth) wants to outwit his tyrannical tycoon boss Lionel Shahbandar (Alan Rickman). Dean plans to sell Shahbandar a fake Monet (forged by Tom Courtenay’s The General); he flies to Texas to give the “masterpiece” to a rodeo queen, PJ Puznowski (Cameron Diaz), and brings her to London, where he puts her up at the Savoy. Next, he learns that Shahbandar is about to hire a new curator (Stanley Tucci). And then he loses his trousers.

The Coen brothers wrote the script but these acclaimed masters of irony, postmodern pastiche and philosophical musing seem shadows of their normal selves. They started it “between films”, back in the late Nineties, and — having initially moved the action to the States — did some more tweaking over the years. Basically, they became hacks-for-hire and for reasons best known to themselves forgot to disown their baby despite its being disfigured by development hell.

The few scenes set in America suggest the Coens should have stuck to their guns. In Texas, we meet PJ’s putrid granny and witness bareback-riding monkeys. It’s totally OTT but contains some true grit. What follows in London contains no such texture. The mood isn’t so much vintage as instantly old-hat.

The best performance comes from Julian Rhind-Tutt, as a nosy but diligent hotel concierge. Look out, too, for a sweet moment of slapstick; not Firth showing off his pins but a fragrant woman cutting the cheese. Hardly a contender for freshest gag of the year but I’ll take my thrills where I find ’em.

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