Gambit (Colin Firth)

(Amazon UK link)

We wanted something light-weight to watch, preferably amusing, and without any deep emotional pulling of heartstrings. Too much trauma is going on in the real world at present and we needed a couple of hours of escapism. Looking through our shelves, I pulled out ‘Gambit’, a film we saw back in 2014 but had entirely forgotten. With an all-star cast and a blurb suggesting it was essentially a comedy, it seemed like a good choice.

Colin Firth is the main character in this 2012 film set mostly in the UK. He is superbly cast as Harry Deane, an art curator who works for an arrogant, rude multi-millionaire called Lionel - also perfectly played by Alan Rickman. Harry is friendly with The Major (Tom Courtenay) who is an excellent artist, and who has made copies of some well-known paintings that are almost indistinguishable from the originals.

So Harry has come up with a cunning plan to fool his boss into paying millions for a copy of a painting he has been looking at. He plots a careful strategy involving a cowgirl called PJ Puznowski (Cameron Diaz) and everything seems to be going as he expected… until we realised that the first part of the film, much of it narrated by The Major, is his imagination.

The story then moves to reality.  It contrasts rather dramatically with the planned smooth-running heist and is all the more amusing due to knowing what Harry had hoped for. He is punched in the face several times by different people, finds PJ much louder and more outspoken than he had expected, and ends up spending significant amounts of money that he can’t afford. He also has an unpleasant time when he’s locked in a hotel laundry room…

Stanley Tucci has a part too, as another art curator, and there are some amusing scenes with a group of Japanese men with whom Lionel wants to do business. We very much liked scenes in the Savoy Hotel (the real hotel in London was, apparently used) involving two increasingly bemused but very professional staff on the desk, dealing competently with the most unlikely of circumstances.

The script and timing are excellent. Colin Firth plays everything straight faced, even when innuendoes abound at times, in his somewhat typical role as a slightly anxious but very intelligent man. Alan Rickman is utterly obnoxious, oozing charm when he wants to, convinced he is attractive to PJ (and perhaps he is…). Cameron Diaz could have been born to the part too - her Texan accent sounds flawless to me, and her chemistry with both the main male roles is entirely believable.

It’s a ridiculous story, of course, with extra humour from incidents including asides, misunderstandings, the loss of some trousers, and a rather unusual security system for Lionel’s paintings. And the ending - which, along with the rest of the story, we had entirely forgotten - was just perfect.

‘Gambit’ is rated 12A (PG-13 in the US), perhaps because of the number of times poor Harry is punched, and some relatively mild bad language, mostly in the context of name-calling. There’s some flesh displayed too, but nothing explicit, and while there are many innuendoes, there are no bedroom scenes at all.

There’s an interesting ‘extra’ on our DVD about the making of the film, though it’s mostly about the choice of cast, and why they got involved in the film.

Definitely recommended if you want a light-hearted but reasonably intelligent comedy with a well-known cast.

Review copyright 2022 Sue's DVD Reviews