Gambit [2012]

You know that relaxing movie that you wanna play sometimes, but you’re ashamed to… That mix of comedy, somewhat intelligent humor and a good cast to top it all off; but not too romantic, modern or lame… As you probably guessed, this new Coen brothers movie is exactly that, although the whole plot seems to lame and formulaic to be funny. Gambit is a cleverly written light comedy with an excellent cast. It also seems that each character was specifically written for that actor, although this movie could have been starring a completely different cast: Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, and Ben Kingsley.

Lionel Shahbandar, a media mogul and a lord, has one more title to his name, a horrible boss. Harry Deane, (Colin Firth, long live the king) who looks after his art collection, is a simple fellow with good manners and a big heart, but really depressed because he has to be humiliated on a daily basis by his pompous boss. Harry and his good friend Major, devise a plan to stick it to the man, well in this case, Lord Shahbandar, magnificently played by the almighty Alan Rickman. This complicated and yet simple scheme involves a third person that could not be farther from the business and art world, miss PJ Puznowski (Cameron Diaz). PJ is a country girl from Texas, that enjoy cattle rustling and plucking chickens, so a plan that will make her rich very quickly sounds very good to her. But, as in all good plans, things don’t go quite well as you would expect them to…

Written by the Coen brothers who brought you many legendary movies, Gambit is good for one watching and perhaps a second, when you accidentally catch it on cable. Still, I liked how the romance was shifted out of the focus, and the clumsiness of our dear fellow Harry brought into the spotlight. In the scenes which take place in a hotel, he reminded me very much of a timeless performance by Peter Sellers in the movie The Party (1968). Other than that, I think that this sums up my thoughts about this movie, enjoy…

Director: Michael Hoffman

Writers:  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci, Tom Courtenay

Fun Facts: Jennifer Aniston was considered for the role of PJ Puznowski.

Rating:

IMDb Link: IMDb Link