Rating :   61/100                                                                       89 Min       

This really isn’t very funny at all. A remake of the 1966 film of the same name that starred Michael Caine and Shirley Maclaine, it bares precious little in common with its predecessor and spent the better part of two decades in development hell before finally being helmed here by Michael Hoffman (‘Restless Natives’ 85) and features a perhaps degraded over time script from the Coen brothers.

It stars Colin Firth as an art expert who is intent on defrauding the boss he hates, played by Alan Rickman, with the help of Cameron Diaz sporting a rich Texan accent, which takes most of the film to get used to. Stanley Tucci makes an appearance as a German rival to Colin Firth, and the talented and roundly respected cast are what finally lift the film someways from the doldrums of the truly awful first half. It won’t have you laughing much, but it may leave you with a smile on your face by the end of it. Not quite the beaming, bedazzling smile of Cameron Diaz, but a smile nonetheless.