The Love Punch (2014)

Perfect cast and a good story

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

If it were possible to allocate zero stars, I would do it. This movie is an incredible waste of time and money. Think how much money must have been wasted in the making of it. And the lighter wallets of those watching it. It beggars belief. After twenty minutes I was beginning to wonder. Is it me? Or is this film truly rubbish? But I got to about half-way through — and switched off the TV. Watching paint dry would have been more fun. What plot there was hadn't been thought out in the slightest. The characters just flitted about without a care in the world. Law enforcement was nowhere to be seen. And it was obvious from the outset that what they "planned" to achieve, they would do so eventually, but only in a movie; in real life never in a million years.Quite honestly, anyone that stupid, in the movie, deserves to lose everything. Perhaps the best thing about the half-movie I watched was the several rather delectable supporting actresses.I don't know whether my review contains any spoilers, as some readers manage to construe spoilage from a misplaced full stop. So I've made sure I checked the "Spoilers" box in order that I'm not cast into the wilderness — and even that would be a more interesting experience than The Love Punch.

This was an amusing film - but nothing more than that really. In my humble opinion it fell short in a number of ways and missed out on several opportunities to play on the 'middle age/getting older/struggling-to-cope-with-the-modern-world' jokes. When it did do this however, it was very funny - but there were never really those laugh-out-loud moments that one would have hoped to find in a film with a cast of such combined considerable talent and experience. Unfortunately, there seemed to be this constant feeling that the four main actors involved (Emma Thompson, Pierce Brosnan) were holding back and could have done better - although it has to be said that the chemistry between all four (and most especially Thompson and Brosnan as ex-spouses) worked really well. However, the stunning locations of Paris and the French Riviera definitely help with taking your mind off the rather silly plot; I ignorantly didn't realize parts of France are so stunningly beautiful. Emma Thompson in particular does her very best with the weak material, proving, as if I didn't already know, that she is one of the most versatile and talented actresses around.But, for me, the film's main surprise is Timothy Spall! He was the funniest guy in this comedy, in my opinion he really stole the show from Emma and Pierce together, he had some really funny jokes and his character is really peculiar and strange.. I loved it! Anyway, the script for this film seemed to 'fall between two stalls' as it were and was neither one thing or the other, resulting in a sort of grey hit-and-miss humour and genre. Perhaps it just tried too hard to be clever and witty, and it may have just been a simple case of 'less is more' - it certainly seemed to thrum along at a fair pace and complexity of plot.Overall rating: 6 out of 10.

Maybe the movie only "deserves" a 6 out of 10, but our main actors and their interplay alone is worth that extra point I gave it. It really feels like those two know each other their whole life, but we knew how good both are acting wise. The movie is also not really hiding the fact that it knows that we know where it is heading. We shall have fun on the ride there though.And we can have fun, if we let ourselves. It's easy like that, just enjoy the two and some odd jokes along the way (let's call a repeated joke video chat "bombing", taken from photo bombing someone of course). Characters are very aware of what they are doing and in what movie they are in (villains are villains you see). Just enjoy if for what it is :o)

I do enjoy a good British romantic comedy. My guilty pleasure I guess. They just make you laugh and feel good, just a little escapism and shouldn't be taken seriously. Being serious, well, that's for other films. Having said that, this movie has so many things wrong with it, it should be a huge failure, but oddly enough I loved it. I thought the two leads Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson were exceptionally well cast as they were so believable and likable. The other "good guy" Anglo-Saxon characters were good and as in so many other British films, the bad guys were French. I'm not sure how to judge their performances. The French accents were really dodgy at best and totally unbelievable, but this just added to all the fun. You know what? I must just watch this again, now.