MOVIE REVIEW by Debbie Lynn Elias
I don’t know about you, but when the opening shot of a film boasts Emma Thompson hoisting a very large martini immediately followed by Pierce Brosnan sidling into frame and elegantly sipping the same, you’ve more than got my attention.
Add a beautifully intimate and colorful garden wedding and crisp, sunlight cinematography to the mix, and I’m hooked. Then garnish with some quick-witted snappy dialogue, and I know I’m in for a treat. And a treat is exactly what The Love Punch delivers. Writer/director Joel Hopkins adds a little more mature rope-a-dope to the production with Celia Imrie and Timothy Spall, as the four gallivant on the French Riviera for the heist of the $10.8 million dollar “Rainbow Diamond”. Although some of the silliness that ensues requires a suspension of disbelief, The Love Punch harkens back to the screwball antics of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story”.
Richard (Brosnan) and Kate (Thompson) are happily and amicably divorced. Their son, Matt, is already in college while daughter Sophie is now joining him in academia, leaving Kate to suffer through her days and nights with a very empty nest. Meanwhile, Richard, a successful investment banker, seems to have been filling his empty hours with partners young enough to be his daughter, something that always gives Kate fuel for comedic fodder. For best friends and neighbors, Jerry and Penelope, the solution to Kate’s newfound loneliness is simple – get back together with Richard. As anyone can see, the love, disguised as sparring foreplay, is as sizzling as ever.
But, life is about to be upended for Richard and Kate thanks to Richard’s selling of his company to a shady Frenchman Vincent Kruger who has absconded with all of the company assets, including the employees’ pension fund. With everyone looking to him for answers, and feeling his own pangs of guilt at having been so easily duped, Richard has only one place to turn. Kate.
At first annoyed by the situation, it’s not until Richard explains, “no pension, no houses, no college, no retirement” that Kate jumps into action with the two developing an outrageous plan. Having just seen the news that Kruger bought his fiancé Manon a $10.8 million diamond, the solution to recovering everyone’s retirement money is simple – steal the diamond and sell it on the Black Market. And with Manon announcing she’ll be wearing it at her upcoming nuptials on the Cote d’Azur, it seems the perfect time and place for Richard and Kate to make their move.
Calling on Penelope and Jerry for assistance, who leap at the chance for adventure, the four come up with a plan that requires disguises, perfect timing, gate crashing and, uh, scuba gear.
At this stage of his career, Brosnan uses the wealth of his life experience both on and off screen to develop textured, flawed, very human and this case, charmingly funny characters. And while Brosnan stands tall on his own as Richard, it’s when he and Emma Thompson get in the ring together where emotions heighten, barbs get wittier and timing is rapier. Thompson is a firecracker. As Kate, she’s bright, funny an dazzling. No matter with whom she shares the screen, it’s Thompson that commands center stage.
Spall and Imrie are more than fitting second bananas as Jerry and Penelope with Spall stealing the show every chance he gets thanks to matter-of-fact non-expressive delivery of surprising tidbits of Jerry’s past. Fueling the funny is Celia Imrie’s wifely kvetching and bumbling burbling at the most inopportune moments.
Written and directed by Joel Hopkins, the premise is smart and antics are fun. One of the most successful gags comes with Timothy Spall’s seemingly bumbling Jerry who keeps surprising everyone with paramilitary super-spy skills, serving as a means to poke fun at one of Brosnan’s most famous characters, Bond. Although predictable, the romantic sub-plot of the rekindling of feelings for Kate and Richard, while enjoyable to watch the chemistry and physical antics of Brosnan and Thompson, falls short with some of the dialogue which often feels hackneyed or not in keeping with either character. Incorporating heist tropes like disguises, car chases and cartographics is necessary for the film, but surprisingly, they are neither over-used nor fall flat visually. An “over the bridge and down the stairs and onto the sidewalk” car chase that starts with Brosnan at the wheel and a lap switch with Thompson mid-chase is hilarious, particularly once Thompson gets in the driver’s seat.
While it doesn’t land every punch, The Love Punch is a winner by decision. It comes out swinging with laughter, love and Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson . And that’s tough to top.
