Gambit - Una truffa a regola d'arte

I really don't think this film deserves the poor reviews it has received! I have never seen the original so am not comparing this, simply judging it as a film in its own right. The cast is brilliant, I love Diaz, Firth, Rickman and Tucci so was never going to be disappointed! Yes it's a ridiculous caper movie, it's not meant to be taken seriously on any level! It's great fun, I was weeping with laughter at some of the hotel scenes, and that doesn't happen often in a movie! I'm not quite sure what some of the reviewers on this site were expecting, but I was thoroughly entertained! I came out with a smile on my face so in my books that's just fine!

I'm not sure why it got so many low ratings. It's one of those movies I've passed over many times, despite my love for Colin Firth, because reviews were so low. Finally, Redbox sold out of anything better, I gave it a try and now I'm so glad I did.

If you're looking for Oceans 11 or The Italian Job type intricacies in the plot, it isn't going to happen. However, it's still cute and interesting with enough of a twist to be worth it. Where this show really shines is in the hilarious writing - the insults and comments are really really funny - and in the acting abilities of Colin Firth and Alan Rickman. Both do tremendous jobs. Colin Firth can take impossibly stupid situations, the kind Steve Martin and Ben Stiller do, situations almost painful in how absurd and moronic they are, and yet he makes them hilarious. A guy on a hotel ledge several stories up, no pants, is old old old, but Colin Firth makes it remarkably entertaining, as if this is the first time you've ever seen that scenario in a movie. Alan Rickman plays a SOB like no one else and he's the total jerk you love anyway (think his Sheriff of Nottingham role) because he's just so good at it and his muttered comments and blatant insults keep you busting out in laughs. I got to the point I was jotting down some of the lines in the show, and thinking I may need to go back to the beginning to write down others, because they're absurd, clever, and all-together brilliant.

If you need lots of intricate plot twists and details - maybe not for you. If you enjoy understated yet remarkably hilarious verbal humor, witty comeback, diverting insult and repartee, ridiculous colloquialisms and a few side-splitting guffaws, this is the show for you.

I watched this film on release night with my fiancée. We had previously seen a couple of trailers for the film and thought it looked funny and interesting, although on the day I was disturbed to see find such a low rating here on IMDb.

*Disclosure, I am not connected to the film's production or any of the cast, and have no agenda here other than offering an alternative point of view.

The basic plot is already known in advance: that Colin Firth wants to con his evil boss using a beautiful Texan as bait. He travels to meet her accompanied by his friend and co-conman, Major Wingate. After watching her in a rodeo they go to a local bar to make the approach. The Major asks Colin how much is he going to tell her? He answers: "Oh, only enough for her to play her part". And the same is true of the audience. You are only told enough to a) identify with Colin's character and his motivation, and b) follow the plot to come.

We're then treated to a brief 'Ocean's 11-style' précis of how Colin imagines the con will play out from start to finish. Needless to say, no plan ever works out exactly as imagined!

The humour is very dry, never in-your-face, and this isn't the kind of film to hand you gags. Laughing our loud isn't the point. Instead there's a mixture of situational comedy, miss-understanding comedy, wordplay, and great interaction between the characters. Some of the best jokes are the ones where you have to smile ruefully when things go wrong on a bad day. I thought at the time that the screen-writing was a lot like Richard Curtis, and could easily imagine Rowan Atkinson as the lead.

Instead the best joke is Colin Firth himself, playing a little man, in Cameron Diaz's words, instead of a larger-than-life character for a change; playing it straight, rarely smiling because he's not very happy (he wants revenge, remember) and not trying to seduce the very comely Cameron Diaz, who also plays a wickedly funny character without being cast as the comic side-kick.

But, from a critics point of view, I guess, there's not much originality. You can perceive homages to other films; old Ealing- comedies like the Ladykillers, where the subject matter isn't funny but there is some great humour. And I'm not referring to the re-make, which I didn't like.

I'd like to watch this film again at a later time and see if I can. It might grow on me and become a minor classic, or it might drop to mediocre. Either way, if you watch it you have to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it isn't. And it probably helps if you have a temperament where you can see the funny side in unfunny situations.

Art heist comedy.

An art curator (Colin Firth) in London devises a way to rob his wealthy art collector boss (Alan Rickman) with the help of a rodeo champion from Texas (Cameron Diaz).

It's a remake of an old Michael Caine film I remember really liking because you see the heist plan smoothly imagined and then you get the somewhat different reality. In this version the imagined plan is brief and sadly does not firm a key component of the movie.

Overall, the film is just okay, mildly amusing with a mediocre plot, but not that memorable. Rickman and Firth are entertaining though.

I was prepared to like this film as I'd seen the original Gambit. This film however, had a completely different story line. Colin Firth does his best with it and there are a couple of smiley moments, especially when he loses his trousers climbing round a hotel ledge but it is not enough. The film is very short, and when it ends you wonder what possessed the Coen Brothers to make it. Cameron Diaz is extremely irritating and the character goes nowhere. Tom Courtenay was wasted in his role and some of the so called funny situations are too contrived ie when they book into the London hotel. The twists in the tale aren't twists at all, just cop outs. It just seems a pointless film and is not clever or funny enough. Colin Firth is a brilliant actor but sometimes his lightweight film choices are very strange. A disappointment.